Emmen, Switzerland - Having postponed the journey a few days before, Vice President JD Vance finally made the trip to Switzerland to join negotiations on a permanent end to the war with Iran.

"I think we're going to hopefully make progress on the nuclear issue, make progress on the Lebanon ceasefire issue," Vance told reporters before departing from Joint Base Andrews on Saturday, explaining he can only join "for a day or two."

Negotiations were planned for Friday, but got postponed at the last minute after Israel carried out a wave of deadly attacks across Lebanon, killing numerous civilians. The violence broke a fragile ceasefire that had been agreed to only hours before.

In this context, diplomats converged on the luxury Burgenstock resort near Lucerne on Saturday to begin preparatory discussions on an end to the Middle East war. Vance arrived at Emmen Air Base on Sunday morning and immediately made his way there.

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"Despite the headlines, things are actually getting better there," Vance said in reference to Lebanon. "Things have calmed down a little bit."

"It's going to be something we're just going to have to continuously manage to ensure that, you know, Israel and Lebanon are both safe and secure," he said. "That's fundamentally the goal of this."

"The big problem is that you have somebody will shoot and then somebody will respond, and you kind of have a chicken and egg problem where you've just got to stop the shooting for long enough to get the ceasefire to hold."

US negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff already made the trip to Switzerland late last week and have been handling the technical elements of the talks, Vance confirmed.

On Saturday, negotiations threatened to fall apart as Iran once again closed the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation against Israel's attacks on Lebanon.