Iran is reviewing a proposed agreement with the US to halt their war but has not communicated with Washington for a few days, Iranian media reported on Tuesday, after US President Donald Trump said negotiations were ongoing. More than three months after the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran, the conflict has morphed into a stalemate with the pivotal Strait of Hormuz largely shut. Iran has not yet responded to a proposed final text of a temporary deal, and was taking a "stern" approach given what it sees as a history of US non-compliance and longstanding mistrust, Mehr News Agency cited a source as saying.
The semi-official Fars agency, also citing a source, added that messages on the possible deal, or memorandum of understanding, had stopped a few days ago, with the last one being Tehran's "clear message" over Lebanon, where Iran is seeking a stop to Israel's incursion against Hezbollah. Trump said on Monday that negotiations were continuing and there would be a deal over the next week to extend a ceasefire agreed in early April and reopen the strait. Since mid-March, he has repeatedly said he is close to a deal, which would postpone thorny issues including the future of Iran's nuclear programme. A ceasefire has largely held since early April, but Iran and the US have exchanged strikes several times over the past week. Oil prices fell more than 1 per cent on Tuesday. A senior International Energy Agency official warned that oil inventories could hit historically low levels.
The war that began on February 28 has killed thousands of people, mainly in Iran and Lebanon. It has caused global pain by pushing up energy prices since Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, which previously carried about a fifth of global supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas. It also triggered the latest round of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, with Israel pursuing its deepest incursion into Lebanon in 25 years. On Tuesday, Israel kept up strikes on a string of towns in southern Lebanon, Lebanese security sources said, despite a US-mediated partial ceasefire announced on Monday.
In the wider war, Iran is pushing for a limited interim agreement as it tries to ease economic pressure while avoiding major concessions on its nuclear programme, according to Iranian sources. Tehran is seeking an end to hostilities across all fronts including Lebanon, access to billions of dollars in oil revenues, waivers on crude exports, a lifting of a US blockade on its ports, and continued leverage over the strait. Trump is under pressure to reopen the strait and curb US fuel prices while not making concessions to Iran.
John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser in his first term and has since become a critic, said the president faced few good options. "I think he wants to have a deal that opens the Strait of Hormuz, and he can declare victory and get the price of gasoline down," Bolton said. "But he knows if he makes a bad deal, he'll be justifiably criticized for it, so he's between a rock and a hard place, and he doesn't know what to do."
Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Tuesday that 24 vessels had transited the strait in the past 24 hours, after obtaining permission from the Guard's navy. Iran threatened on Monday to expand its blockade to the Bab El Mandeb Strait, another chokepoint at the mouth of the Red Sea, if Israel resumed strikes on Beirut. Highlighting the risk at sea, the world's largest shipping group MSC said on Tuesday that one of its vessels was struck by two projectiles while in Iraq's Umm Qasr port the previous day. — Reuters
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