US Vice President JD Vance said talks with Iranian officials in Switzerland had laid a good foundation for a final peace deal, but Iran denied it had begun discussions on its nuclear program or agreed to invite International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors back to the country.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said on Tuesday Iranian officials had not held a meeting with IAEA chief Rafael Grossi in Switzerland and had no plans for the UN nuclear watchdog to inspect Iran's damaged nuclear facilities.

The two sides, trying to build on the interim deal they signed last week after more than three months of war, agreed a roadmap towards a permanent agreement within 60 days at the talks in the Swiss mountain resort of Buergenstock, mediators Pakistan and Qatar said.

They agreed on a mechanism to end fighting between US ally Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, and opened a communications line to help ensure safe passage for commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for global oil supplies that Tehran has blockaded during the war.

In the first of several steps envisaged under the agreement to provide economic relief to Iran, the US Treasury announced a waiver until August 21 on sanctions, allowing Tehran to sell oil and related products and receive payment for them.

Ali Bahreini, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said "good progress" had been made in the talks and that two working groups would be established in coming days to focus on the removal of sanctions and Iran's nuclear activities.

Also on Tuesday, an Iranian ambassador said that Tehran alone will decide how to use its frozen assets once they are unfrozen under a US-Iranian deal towards ending the Middle East war,, contradicting US claims.

As part of the deal under negotiation, Washington has agreed to release $12 billion in frozen funds to Iran, Iranian state media reported on Tuesday, and temporarily suspend sanctions on oil from the Islamic republic.

US Vice President JD Vance said on Monday that Iranian assets had not yet been unfrozen as part of the deal and that, if they were, they could be used to buy US goods such as soybeans and would not fund terrorism.

Ali Bahreini, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, rejected that.

"Iran is the only country who will decide what to do with its assets, which are going to be defrozen," he told reporters at a briefing in Geneva hosted by the UN correspondents' association ACANU.

"I reject any claim by (Washington) about that there should... be any role for any other country to have an influence on those decisions or on those processes."

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