Tehran (AFP) – US President Donald Trump said that a deal with Iran to end the Middle East war could be signed Sunday, and that the strategic Strait of Hormuz would be “open to all” immediately after. But in a potential threat to the efforts to end the conflict, Israel — which launched the war with the US in February — said its military had carried out strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday.
Iran had offered a different timeline to Trump, but nonetheless signalled an agreement was in the offing, as both the warring parties and their mediators expressed increasing optimism that weeks of talks were drawing to a close. “The Deal is scheduled to get signed tomorrow, and immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL,” Trump wrote on social media on Saturday. Yet Israel’s latest strikes on the Lebanese capital come after Iran retaliated to an earlier round of attacks on southern Beirut this month, firing missiles at Israeli territory.
A US official insisted Friday that any deal to end the war would also include Lebanon, which was drawn into the Middle East conflict when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel on March 2. Iran has said that a peace deal must cover Israel’s campaign in Lebanon. Despite ongoing attacks between Israel and Hezbollah, the leader of key mediator Pakistan also said that a peace deal was closer “than ever.” The “finalisation” of this agreement is expected “within the next 24 hours,” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Saturday, adding that it will be signed electronically. He said “technical level talks” were expected to follow next week.
A Pakistani foreign ministry statement said the signing was planned for Sunday. But Iran’s Fars news agency, citing “a well-informed source close to the Iranian negotiating team,” reported that Tehran had “not yet taken or announced its final decision” on a deal.
Since an April 8 truce paused the worst of the fighting, Trump has repeatedly insisted a deal was imminent, only for the wrangling to drag on. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said earlier on Saturday that the date of the signing was yet to be determined, but “it will not be tomorrow.” However, he added: “The possibility of this happening in the coming days cannot be ruled out.” The warring parties have released conflicting information about the contents of the deal, as each seeks to show it emerged from the war with the upper hand. A delegation from fellow mediator Qatar, meanwhile, arrived in Tehran on Sunday for talks, according to Iranian media.
Tehran has insisted it will maintain control over the Strait of Hormuz, a key maritime trade route for oil and gas shipments from the Gulf. The US, however, has repeatedly said Iran remaining in control of the strait would be unacceptable. Since imposing its blockade on the strait — which has thrown global markets into turmoil — Iran has demanded vessels obtain permission from its armed forces before transiting the waterway and has established a new body to oversee it and collect tolls. The US has responded with its own blockade of Iranian ports. The US military’s Central Command said Saturday that Iran had “launched multiple one-way attack drones in an attempt to strike commercial ships transiting the Strait.” It added that “US forces have downed all of them.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had said on Friday that the deal on the table called for the lifting of the US naval blockade.
Another key sticking point in the talks has been the fate of Iran’s nuclear programme, particularly its stockpile of highly enriched uranium — believed to have been buried by US strikes last year. Iran has long insisted its nuclear programme is peaceful, but the US, Israel, and other Western governments suspect it of seeking a bomb. Araghchi on Friday said the only way to deal with Iran’s enriched uranium “is to dilute it inside Iran.” Trump, who has justified the war as necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, previously said the US would remove and destroy the uranium. On Saturday, he said: “When all is calm, we will go in and get the Nuclear Dust…and downblend and destroy it, whether in Iran or the United States.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Trump had promised him any agreement would include the removal of the enriched nuclear material. On Sunday, Israel’s military issued evacuation warnings for 29 villages in southern Lebanon. Netanyahu’s office later said the military had carried out strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs against Hezbollah targets “in response to Hezbollah’s firing towards Israeli territory.” The military said it had struck a Hezbollah infrastructure site, while Lebanese state media said a strike hit the Ghobeiry neighbourhood. Israel’s military also reported that three drones, suspected to have been launched by Hezbollah, struck northern Israel on Sunday but caused no casualties.
© 2024 AFP
