Iran<\/a> and Israel, momentarily destabilising negotiations between Tehran and Washington.<\/p>\nMembers of security forces gather near a heavily damaged building after an Israeli airstrike on the Dahiyeh district in Beirut on Sunday. Photograph: Houssam Shbaro\/Anadolu\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, a lead negotiator for Tehran and Iran\u2019s parliamentary speaker, wrote on X on Sunday that Israel\u2019s strikes on Beirut showed \u201cAmerica either lacks the will to fulfil its commitments or the ability to do so\u201d, warning that the strikes could imperil the final stage of talks.<\/p>\n
Gen Mohammad Jafar Asadi, the deputy commander of Iran\u2019s joint command headquarters, said: \u201cThese crimes will not go unanswered,\u201d according to the official Mizan news agency.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s foreign \u200bministry said it held the US responsible for Israel\u2019s attack in Lebanon and warned of a \u201cstrong response.\u201d Iran\u2019s top joint military command added that the \u201cfinger [is] on the trigger\u201d and was ready to fire at the \u201cenemy\u2019s heart\u201d.<\/p>\n
Tehran has insisted that any peace agreement must cover \u201call fronts\u201d and so include the fighting in Lebanon, where Israel has launched a broad offensive and occupied a swath of the south.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Iranians do not trust the Americans and are not convinced that the Americans will hold the Israelis in check. I don\u2019t think the Iranians care about Lebanon but they do care about Hezbollah \u2026 and they have spoilers on their own side who don\u2019t want a deal,\u201d said HA Hellyer, a regional expert at the Royal United Services Institute thinktank in London.<\/p>\n
Regional officials said Qatari mediators travelled to Tehran on Sunday to finalise terms of a memorandum of understanding, which is expected to be signed electronically.<\/p>\n
Unconfirmed reports suggest this preliminary agreement will oblige Iran to reopen to all shipping the strait of Hormuz, which before the war carried about a fifth of the world\u2019s oil and liquid gas supplies. At the same time, the US would lift its own blockade of Iran and allow Tehran to sell oil, providing some relief for Iran\u2019s fast-deteriorating economy.<\/p>\n
However, the memorandum does not appear to address the most contentious issues, such as Iran\u2019s nuclear programme, which would be addressed during a 60-day period leading to a more comprehensive deal.<\/p>\n
Observers have expressed scepticism that complex negotiations could be successfully concluded in less than two months, pointing out that the 2015 US-Iran deal that restricted Tehran\u2019s nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief took almost 10 times longer and the negotiations were conducted by large teams of technical experts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI doubt we are going to see all this hammered out in 60 days,\u201d said Alia Brahimi, of the Washington-based Atlantic Council.<\/p>\n
Police officers and emergency personnel work at the site of an Israeli strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut on Sunday. Photograph: Zohra Bensemra\/Reuters<\/p>\n
Reaction in Israel to the broad outlines of the emerging deal has been sharp, with widespread concern at the absence of terms in the draft agreement that would force Iran to restrict either its ballistic missile arsenal or support for regional militant movements such as Hezbollah. Netanyahu has publicly supported Trump but faces a tough re-election battle later this year.<\/p>\n
Hezbollah fired missiles into Israel on 2 March, two days after the US and Israel attacked Iran, killing the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Israeli troops have since pushed their invasion of Lebanon deeper than at any point in over a quarter-century.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a colossal failure. A full-blown collapse. Iran has undisputedly emerged as the big winner,\u201d wrote Avi Ashkenazi in the mass-market Maariv newspaper.<\/p>\n
Jacob Nagel, a former national security adviser to Netanyahu, called the draft deal a \u201cbig mistake\u201d.<\/p>\n
Critics in Trump\u2019s Republican party, which is struggling with high fuel prices and an unpopular war ahead of midterm elections, have also criticised the emerging deal.<\/p>\n
Even if the strait of Hormuz is reopened, relief for the world economy will come slowly, analysts say. Safe passage for shipping trapped in the narrow waterway is far from assured and infrastructure damaged during the conflict will take months to fully repair.<\/p>\n
Trump is expected to discuss de-mining the strait during the G7 summit that starts on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A peace deal between the US and Iran has been reached, with both sides declaring \u201cthe immediate and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-492944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}