(AFP) – US President Donald Trump on Thursday announced a “great settlement” to end the war with Iran, saying he expected a deal to be signed in Europe as soon as this weekend. Trump — who is hosting a cage fight Sunday at the White House on his 80th birthday — said Vice President JD Vance would represent the United States.
The US leader’s claim came just hours after he promised fresh strikes against Iran, before calling them off. There was no confirmation from Iran, and Trump revealed few concrete details about what each side had agreed to. “We just made a great settlement of the war with Iran,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. The two sides would, “subject to finalization of documents, which should get done over the next few days, probably have a signing, maybe in Europe. It’s a great thing.”
Trump said he believed Iranian supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei had personally approved the deal, adding that Iran had agreed because they had “taken a pounding.” Iran would agree to never have or purchase a nuclear weapon under the deal, Trump said. He added that the Strait of Hormuz — a crucial waterway for the flow of oil which Iran claims to have shuttered — would also open once the deal was signed. “It’s a very strong memorandum of understanding, that is a little conceptual,” he added.
Iran and the United States have spent several weeks discussing a memorandum, with reports that it would halt the war for 60 to 90 days while more detailed talks take place on Tehran’s nuclear program. Trump, however, said that “I don’t want to say a deadline, because if I say a deadline, you’ll say, ‘Oh, he didn’t meet the deadline.'” The United States and Israel launched the war on Iran on February 28. A fragile ceasefire was agreed in April, but both sides have traded fire in recent days.
“The whole Middle East is happy, and long beyond the Middle East,” said Trump, whose war has caused global oil prices to spike, with inflation hitting a three-year high in the United States. An increasingly frustrated Trump has for weeks veered between proclaiming a deal and threatening Iran, accusing Tehran as recently as Wednesday of “playing us for suckers.”
On Thursday morning, Trump vowed “very hard” strikes on Iran that evening and promised to take the country’s key oil infrastructure in what would have been a major escalation. “At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela,” he said on social media.
Kharg Island is at the heart of Iran’s oil export industry, a lynchpin of the country’s battered economy. It sits off Iran’s Gulf coast, hundreds of kilometers northwest of the narrow, strategic Strait of Hormuz. But a few hours later, he backtracked, saying in another social media post that “final points have been… approved by all parties involved.”
“Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have… cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening,” Trump said. Less than two hours after saying he had canceled the strikes, Trump then announced the deal.
– Danny KEMP
© 2024 AFP
