DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United States and Iran reached an initial agreement Monday that would extend their shaky ceasefire and lead to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, but significant challenges remain to ending the war, including whether Israel will continue its offensive in Lebanon.
Details of the deal have not been made public. The U.S. said it was signed electronically on Sunday but that it will not be implemented until a formal signing. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a key mediator, said that will happen Friday in Geneva. Even if the strait — a crucial waterway for the world’s oil and natural gas — fully opens then, it will likely take months for the global energy crisis sparked by its closure to ease.
Israel joined the U.S. in launching the war on Feb. 28, but it is not party to the deal. The Israeli defense minister said Monday that the country would not withdraw from land seized in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group.
A spokesman in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel will continue to defend itself against any threat to its security. That alone could scuttle the deal, since Iran has insisted any agreement to end the war include an end to the fighting in Lebanon.
The agreement also faces other major challenges. It gives just 60 days to decide what to do about Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium and its nuclear program — which the U.S. and Israel worry could be used to build an atomic weapon, despite Tehran’s insistence that the program is peaceful. It took years for Iran and world powers to negotiate a 2015 agreement to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program.
President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from that accord in his first term, setting the stage for the tensions that culminated in the current war, which has killed thousands across the Middle East, including the top leaders of Iran’s theocracy, and raised the prices of fuel, food and other basic goods far beyond the region.
The Strait of Hormuz won’t open until the deal is signed
Early in the war, Iranian attacks on ships brought traffic in the Strait of Hormuz — through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas passed before the conflict — to a near standstill. Trump implemented a blockade in response.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said Iran would not start implementing the agreement until after the signing ceremony. The U.S. military said the blockade will remain in place “pending execution” of the deal.
“Do not attempt to cross until explicit direction is given,” it said Monday in an advisory to merchant ships.
Trump, who faced pressure to end the war ahead of congressional midterm elections in November, said that “a lot of great things are going to happen in the Middle East right now.”
“Very importantly, the oil is plummeting down, and the stock market is shooting up like a rocket today,” he said Monday at the G7 summit in France.
While the agreement provides for the “immediate” opening of the strait and lifting of the blockade, the process will take time because there are mines in the strait, and ships are unwilling to risk traversing it, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss outlines of the agreement.
Details remain scant but expected soon
A second senior U.S. official told reporters that details of the agreement would be released within the next two days.
The memorandum of understanding includes the possibility of releasing Iran’s frozen funds, easing sanctions and creating a $300 billion fund to rebuild Iran — all of which would be tied to Iran meeting benchmarks, the official said.
The officials said technical talks would begin on Friday after the signing ceremony and that Vice President JD Vance would lead negotiations for the U.S.
Israel says it won’t withdraw from Lebanon
The success of the deal rests at least partially on what happens between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel’s bombing of Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday nearly derailed the negotiations, and a previous attack led Iran to fire on Israel and Israel to fire back.
