Focus turns to Strait of Hormuz after US and Iran presidents sign ceasefire agreement

[EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France/NABATIEH, Lebanon] The US and Iran released the text of an interim agreement their presidents have signed to end their war on Wednesday (Jun 17), with US President Donald Trump threatening to resume attacks and kill Iranian officials if they failed to honour their commitments.

Trump, attending the G7 with other leaders in France, also withdrew at least one of his stated rationales for attacking Iran in the first place, saying it would be “unfair” for Teheran not to have ballistic missiles, having previously vowed to obliterate them.

“We’re going to bomb the hell out of them if they violate the agreement,” Trump said of Iran at a press conference. “I don’t want them to. I want them to honor the agreement.”

He also called Iranians “smart people” as US and Iranian negotiators work on a permanent truce over the coming 60 days, which Trump said he hoped would usher in peace in the Middle East and lower oil prices.

Earlier, he had said: “If I don’t like it, if they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, OK?“

Iran’s leaders did not address the new threats while celebrating the moment, releasing photographs of what is believed to be the first agreement signed by both a US and Iranian president since the Islamic Republic’s founding in 1979.

“Everything we sought to achieve through military action, we obtained several times over through negotiation; it was not even comparable,” said Iran’s lead negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, as he told state television about the agreement, which includes the unfreezing of billions of dollars in Iranian assets.

The US and Israel launched the war on Iran on Feb 28, assassinating the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and top military officials on the very first day. It quickly spiralled into a regional conflict that has killed more than 7,000 people, mostly in Iran and Lebanon; driven up energy prices; renewed inflationary pressures and sparked concerns about a major food supply crisis in developing countries.

The 14-point agreement extends a ceasefire announced in April by another 60 days, including in Lebanon, to allow the two sides to negotiate a final truce.

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Both Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian have digitally signed the memorandum in English and Farsi, US and Iran officials said, with Iran’s foreign ministry saying the agreement was already in effect as of Wednesday. But it was unclear if Iran had immediately begun taking steps to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump signed just before a grand dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles, the site of the signing of the eponymous treaty that formally ended World War I.

Iran agrees to on-site “down-blending” its enriched uranium

The memorandum includes an immediate end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, the full resumption of maritime traffic “with no charge” in the Strait of Hormuz, the lifting of a US blockade of Iranian ports, the waiving of US sanctions on Iran, the unfreezing of its assets, and a US$300 billion investment fund for the Islamic Republic’s post-war reconstruction.

Oil prices fell again on Wednesday on prospects for the reopening of the Hormuz, the slender, vital waterway between Iran and Oman, with Brent crude futures below US$80, at their lowest level since the war’s start. They later regained more than 1 per cent after Trump threatened renewed violence.

Iran also undertakes not to build nuclear weapons, reaffirming a vow it had made for decades. It also agreed to the on-site “down-blending” of its stockpile of enriched uranium under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, although Trump had wanted to take it out of the country, which Iran has rejected.

Despite his typically combative rhetoric, Trump appears to have achieved little of what he said he wanted at the outset of the war, while Iran appears much closer to sanctions relief worth billions of dollars than before it was attacked.

Iran’s theocratic government remains in place, its stockpile of highly enriched uranium has not been surrendered, its ballistic missile capabilities have not been destroyed and it has not ended its support for anti-Israel militias like Hizbollah in Lebanon.

Trump recanted his February promise to destroy all of Iran’s missiles and “raze their missile industry to the ground.”

“I’m saying that if other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some,” Trump said after leaving the summit.

G7 leaders hailed the agreement at their summit, held in the French town of Evian-les-Bains, an hour’s drive along the shore of Lake Geneva from where the US has said a formal signing ceremony for the US-Iran agreement was due to be held across the Swiss border on Friday.

But Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei cast doubt on this, telling IRIB’s News Network that, because the two presidents had already digitally signed the agreement, “No signing ceremony will be held in Switzerland.”

European leaders share the US concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme and other issues, but never endorsed his decision to go to war without United Nations authorisation, and worry Iran has gained leverage by withstanding the superpower onslaught and asserting control over the strait.

The leaders of France, Germany, Britain, Japan, Italy, Canada and the US demanded an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, where the memorandum calls for a halt to hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed Hizbollah group that have displaced more than a million people.

Fighting there has abated but not ceased since the agreement was reached on Sunday, and Israel, which was not part of the negotiations and whose military is occupying southern Lebanon, says it retains the right to use force.

Trump chides Netanyahu

Trump on Wednesday gently rebuked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his tactics in Lebanon against Hizbollah. The two men have repeatedly clashed over Israel’s refusal to constrain its pursuit of Hizbollah in Lebanon, where a cessation of hostilities is a key Iranian demand.

“Netanyahu happens to be a good man, gets a little excited sometimes,” Trump told reporters.

“We have a little dispute over Lebanon. I say you can do a little softer touch, Bibi,” he said, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “You don’t have to knock down a building every time somebody walks into it that’s from Hizbollah.”

Lebanese state media reported fresh Israeli air strikes and artillery fire in several southern towns throughout Wednesday. Lebanese security sources said Hizbollah had also launched two drone attacks on Israeli forces in the south. The group did not publicly claim the attacks.

Israel later said five of its soldiers had been injured in two Hizbollah drone attacks in southern Lebanon. REUTERS, BLOOMBERG