Lebanon<\/a>, 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 traveled 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":"Donald Trump called for restraint on Sunday after Israel launched fresh airstrikes on Beirut, as mediators sought to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-638736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}