The rain had stopped just before dawn over Switzerland’s Lake Lucerne. From the balconies of the Bürgenstock Resort, perched high above the water, diplomats could see the first light creeping across the Alps. Inside the glass-and-steel conference complex, however, there was little appreciation for the scenery. Coffee cups, draft texts, and marked-up briefing papers lay scattered across tables where negotiators had spent nearly 18 hours trying to prevent West Asia from sliding into a wider war.
By early morning on June 22, exhausted mediators from Pakistan and Qatar were shuttling between American and Iranian delegations carrying messages that could determine whether the region moved towards diplomacy or another round of escalation. The talks had already survived several moments when collapse appeared imminent.
At one point, Iranian officials threatened to suspend participation after public remarks by US President Donald Trump, warning Tehran of military consequences if it blocked the Strait of Hormuz and failed to restrain the Hezbollah. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei later confirmed that after an initial quadrilateral session involving Iran, the US, and the mediators, direct talks ceased and communication continued only through intermediaries.
Insiders told Frontline that for nearly 18 exhausting hours, stretching well past 2 am local time, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and Pakistan’s Army Chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, barely left their posts. The 3 men spent much of the night shuttling between floors of the 7-storey Bürgenstock Resort, carrying messages, resolving deadlocks, and trying to prevent the negotiations from collapsing.
They moved continuously between the US delegation, led by Vice President J.D. Vance alongside presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, and the Iranian delegation, headed by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei.
Experts say it was not simply another round of nuclear diplomacy. It was the second act of a dramatic geopolitical reversal that began with the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding signed at midnight on June 17, and culminated in Switzerland with the outline of a broader political framework. The negotiations established working groups on sanctions relief, nuclear issues, reconstruction and implementation, while opening a 60-day pathway towards a final settlement.
More importantly, they revealed something far bigger. The war that had begun as an effort to weaken Iran had ended by forcing the US to reconsider the strategic assumptions that had shaped its West Asia policy for decades.
When Washington changed course
For much of the conflict, the White House publicly framed its objectives in familiar terms. Iran’s nuclear programme had to be constrained. Its regime has to be changed. Tehran’s regional influence had to be rolled back. Israel’s security concerns had to be addressed. But behind closed doors, another factor was increasingly dominating American calculations: economics. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, even if partial, transformed the conflict from a regional war into a global economic emergency.
Nearly a third of the world’s seaborne oil passes through the narrow waterway. When Iran signalled its strategy to disrupt shipping, energy markets reacted immediately. Tanker insurance costs surged. Shipping schedules were thrown into uncertainty. Oil traders began pricing their merchandise keeping in mind the possibility of a prolonged disruption.
According to officials familiar with the negotiations, economic assessments presented to Trump painted a bleak picture. Strategic petroleum reserves could cushion only a limited period of disruption. A longer crisis risked sending fuel prices soaring just months before crucial midterm elections.
“The world would have turned upside down economically,” Trump later admitted, in a remark that may ultimately explain more about the agreement than any diplomatic communique. It was at this point that two competing strategic visions collided.
US Vice President J.D. Vance ahead of the quadrilateral meeting between the US, Iran, Pakistan, and Qatar at the Burgenstock luxury hotel complex overlooking Lake Lucerne, in Switzerland, on June 21.
| Photo Credit:
NATHAN HOWARD/AP
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued to see the conflict as part of a broader effort to reshape the regional order through military pressure. Trump increasingly saw it as a growing political liability that threatened economic stability and Republican electoral prospects. The result was the diplomatic pivot that brought the parties to Switzerland.
Pakistan’s unlikely diplomatic moment
One of the most remarkable aspects of the negotiations was the central role played by Pakistan. For years, Islamabad had largely remained on the margins of major West Asian diplomacy. Yet in both the initial memorandum and the Switzerland talks, Pakistan emerged as a key intermediary alongside Qatar.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif maintained direct communication with both Washington and Tehran. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar disclosed that negotiations had nearly collapsed after renewed Israeli attacks in Lebanon, requiring intensive diplomatic efforts to bring both sides back to the table. According to Dar, technical negotiations are now operating under timelines of 30 and 60 days, aimed at producing a final agreement.
For decades, major regional crises were managed almost exclusively by Washington, Moscow, or European capitals. Bürgenstock demonstrated the growing importance of middle-level powers capable of engaging all sides simultaneously.
Former Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao has described this trend as part of a wider transformation in which regional actors increasingly shape outcomes once determined primarily by global powers. Switzerland may have hosted the talks, but the diplomatic architecture was becoming distinctly regional.
Tehran celebrates survival, not victory
Earlier, when Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed the initial Islamabad Understanding framework electronically, Tehran had erupted into jubilation. Along Valiasr Street, traffic had returned to its familiar rhythm. Cafes that had remained half-empty during the war slowly filled again. Yet, the mood was notably restrained. There were no declarations of triumph. Instead, there was relief.
Many Iranians viewed the outcome not as a victory over the US or Israel, but as proof that the Islamic Republic had survived a confrontation that many feared could become existential.
President Pezeshkian framed the negotiations as evidence that resistance and diplomacy could work together. Former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif hailed the process as a diplomatic success.
But beneath the surface, divisions are widening.
Conservative newspapers and parliamentarians remain deeply sceptical. Some argue Tehran surrendered leverage too quickly by reopening Hormuz without securing stronger guarantees on sanctions relief. Others question renewed cooperation mechanisms involving international inspectors.
The shadow of the 2015 nuclear agreement still hangs heavily over Iranian politics. Many remember how years of negotiations ended when Washington withdrew from the accord. That memory explains why celebration in Tehran remains cautious. The central question for many Iranians is simple: can the US be trusted this time?
If Tehran celebrated survival, Gulf nations celebrated stability. The Gulf states spent months watching a conflict unfold along the world’s most important energy corridor.
Iranians walk past a mural depicting the late Iranian supreme leaders Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (left) and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran on June 18, the day after a “memorandum of understanding” was signed remotely by US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, as well as by the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Pakistan had mediated between the US and Iran.
| Photo Credit:
AFP
In Qatar, concern centred less on military developments than on economic consequences. As the war erupted, air traffic slowed in Doha and Dubai. Shipping routes became uncertain and hit the Gulf nations below the belt.
For decades, their regional prosperity rested on assumptions that maritime routes would remain secure and that American military power would guarantee stability.
The Hormuz crisis challenged both assumptions. Increasingly, Gulf leaders appear convinced that coexistence with Iran, however uncomfortable, may be preferable to permanent confrontation.
That calculation helps explain why Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) all quietly supported diplomatic efforts.
A man reads a copy of the Iranian daily newspaper Hamshahri bearing an image of the US President and a headline that means “Gone with the wind”, in Tehran on June 18.
| Photo Credit:
AFP
In Ankara, officials viewed the outcome through a different lens.
Türkiye worked largely behind the scenes and was key to foiling US-Israeli plans to change the regime in Tehran, by prevailing upon Masrour Barzani, Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq, and the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, to force Kurdish and Azeri groups not to provide military boots to the invading forces. Going by past experience of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, US strategists had hoped that providing air cover to Kurdish military groups, as they did to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, would ensure that Tehran fell under its own weight and that the process would be facilitated by local public anger and help from Azeri groups backed by Azerbaijan.
Turkish policymakers see broader significance in the emergence of a regional diplomatic alignment involving Türkiye, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan. The result is the gradual emergence of a more multipolar West Asia, where regional actors exercise greater autonomy rather than simply aligning behind external powers.
Israeli shock
In Tel Aviv, the shock was visible. Outside a cafe near Rabin Square, conversations quickly turned from the agreement itself to what many Israelis viewed as a betrayal. “We were told Iran would be defeated,” said Eyal, a reserve officer recently released from military service. He refused to share his full name. “Now Iran survives, Hezbollah survives, and Trump is making deals.”
Among supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the sense of disappointment is even deeper. For months, they were told that Israel and the US were together reshaping West Asia. The war was presented not simply as a military campaign but as the culmination of a broader strategic project that would finally neutralise Iran and fundamentally alter the regional balance of power. Instead, President Donald Trump abruptly changed course and embraced a memorandum of understanding that many Israelis believe leaves Iran bruised but intact.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid accused Netanyahu of leaving Israel strategically constrained. Commentators who once praised Trump’s West Asia team suddenly began questioning Washington’s reliability.
An Israeli military vehicle in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon, on June 18.
| Photo Credit:
ARIEL SCHALIT/AP
The Lebanon dimension has become especially contentious. One outcome of the Switzerland talks was the creation of a new mechanism involving the US, Iran, and Lebanon to manage ceasefire implementation and prevent escalation. Israeli officials worry that this effectively gives Tehran a recognised role in Lebanese affairs while reducing Israel’s operational freedom.
Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group believes the most important development is not the nuclear framework itself but the mechanisms being established around it.
“The 2015 nuclear deal created procedures for verification but lacked effective mechanisms addressing sanctions implementation. The new framework attempts to address both. More significantly, it institutionalises discussions about Lebanon, creating a process in which Iran’s voice is formally present alongside other regional actors,” he said.
Analysts say the region emerging from the conflict now looks very different from the one imagined at the beginning of the war.
Not only has Iran emerged as an indispensable actor in any future regional settlement, despite suffering military and economic damage, but other countries are also reviewing their calculations. Saudi Arabia has become more cautious. The Gulf states are hedging their bets. Türkiye has expanded its diplomatic reach. Pakistan has demonstrated unexpected relevance.
As the veteran Israeli columnist Gideon Levy observed, only time will tell whether the current moment represents the beginning of a new era or merely another pause in a longer conflict.
An excavator clears rubble from the site of a collapsed building, following Israeli bombardment in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon on June 21. Iran warned the US to “be careful” after Trump threatened to strike the Islamic republic over its support for the Hezbollah, even as the arch foes held talks in Switzerland seeking a deal to permanently end the war.
| Photo Credit:
MAHMOUD ZAYYAT/AFP
The answer may depend less on what was signed in Switzerland than on whether the political forces that produced the agreement remain intact.
For now, however, one conclusion is difficult to avoid. The Bürgenstock negotiations marked more than a diplomatic breakthrough. The war has once again punctured Israel’s sense of invincibility.
Historians often compare this moment to the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, which shattered the confidence Israel had acquired after its victory in the 1967 Six-Day War. Biographer of Henry Kissinger and former US diplomat Martin Indyk notes that Israel had largely ignored Egyptian peace overtures until the shock of Egypt’s crossing of the Suez Canal forced a strategic reassessment.
This jolted confidence in Tel Aviv eventually led to the Camp David Accords and later the Oslo process. Today, a similar moment of reckoning may be emerging.
Support for Israel in the US remains strong but is increasingly polarised, particularly after the Gaza war.
Whether this latest setback prompts a reassessment in Tel Aviv remains uncertain. What it has already demonstrated is that military campaigns have failed to deliver the political outcomes their architects sought, while exposing the extent to which even Washington’s closest alliances are shaped by domestic political considerations.
The question now is whether Israel will turn towards diplomacy or continue down a path of perpetual confrontation.
This copy was updated with the latest developments on July 24, 2026.
Iftikhar Gilani is an Indian journalist based in Ankara.
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