CNN: Trump and Iran say agreement to be signed on Friday

Photo: Reuters

US president says Strait of Hormuz will be reopened after agreement is signed on Friday, CNN reports.

• Diplomatic breakthrough: The US and Iran say they have reached an agreement that will end a US blockade of Iranian ports and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The US and Iran have offered conflicting accounts of what will follow a signing ceremony in Geneva on Friday.
• Israeli reaction: Israel’s defense minister said its forces are not withdrawing from southern Lebanon, even though Iran has said the agreement includes an end to the conflict there. Israeli forces struck in Beirut hours before the agreement was announced, enraging President Donald Trump, who publicly expressed his fury with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
• Next steps: Trump is en route to the G7 summit in France, where the agreement, which has drawn global reaction, will be in the spotlight. Markets have cheered the progress to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with oil prices falling to their lowest levels in nearly three months. But recovery from the war’s economic impact could take months.

If things go as planned and the US and Iran sign an agreement aimed at ending hostilities on Friday, negotiators from the two bitter rivals will face the complex task of untangling half a century of deep-seated problems against a backdrop of suspicion, hostility and broken trust – all in 60 days.

It’s likely that this two-month window would need to be extended. The issues remain highly complex and could require specialists with profound technical expertise across military strategy, international law, economic sanctions, and nuclear technology.

Negotiators will need to reach agreements on demining the Strait of Hormuz, the legality and implementation of sanctions waivers, the destination of frozen Iranian assets, monitoring and restricting Iran’s nuclear program in cooperation with the UN’s atomic watchdog, limits on uranium enrichment, and extracting highly enriched uranium buried in Iranian soil.

Beyond regional mediators, who have proven apt at brokering peace agreements, Washington and Tehran may also need to set aside their differences with other major powers like European nations, China, and Russia, to use their specialized expertise and technical capabilities required to resolve these issues.

All of this has to unfold against the backdrop of fierce pressure opposing a deal from key allies like Israel to hardline factions in Iran and even critics in Washington.

And unlike the 2015 nuclear agreement, which took nearly two years of meticulous negotiations by the Obama administration and five other major powers (backed by teams of nuclear experts and Iran analysts) – this time the shadow of a devastating war looms large, one that claimed the life of Iran’s most revered leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

More importantly, both sides must shape an agreement that, from the outset, appears fundamentally different from the 2015 deal to persuade the American president that it is markedly superior to its predecessor, which he has repeatedly branded “one of the worst deals ever made.”

NYT: Trump claims strait will be ‘permanently toll-free’ under agreement with Iran

President Trump said in an interview on Sunday afternoon that the agreement he had reached with Iran would ultimately assure that the Strait of Hormuz was “permanently toll-free,” and asserted that, despite the objections of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, he had saved Israel from nuclear obliteration.

Mr. Trump also insisted that if Iran failed to reach a final nuclear accord with the United States — a process that his aides say they expect will begin on Friday in Switzerland — he would restart military attacks on Tehran or make the United States “the guardian of the Middle East” in return for 20 percent of the region’s revenues.

In a 28-minute phone conversation that Mr. Trump initiated from the White House residence, and a brief follow-up call, the president contended that his decision to attack Iran in late February, and his subsequent naval blockade of its ports after Tehran closed the strait, had remade the Middle East in America’s favor.

Speaking on his 80th birthday, as his family could be heard gathering in the background for a celebratory dinner, he praised two Presidents — Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — for aiding in the settlement, or at least not interfering in the blockade of the Strait.

“He was a total gentleman,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Xi, whom he visited in China last month. “He didn’t send a tanker, along with 20 destroyers on each side of it, to try and break up the blockade,’’ an act that would have put the Chinese and American navies into potential conflict.

But he excoriated Mr. Netanyahu for mounting attacks that nearly derailed the final agreement.

“He’s a very difficult guy,” Mr. Trump said of the Israeli prime minister, “and to be honest with you, he should be very thankful to us for doing this. Because if Iran had a nuclear weapon, Israel wouldn’t be around for two hours.”

Mr. Trump described Iran’s current leadership, including the new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, as pragmatists. It was a vastly different tone from the one he took on the opening day of the war, when he urged the Iranian people to rise up and take over their government once the American and Israeli bombing was complete. He acknowledged that he had said that, but went on to note that the Iranian people did not have access to arms — and would be slaughtered if they tried.

But he insisted that if Iran’s leaders killed protesters, it would prevent them from getting full sanctions relief and access to $25 billion in frozen funds. That requirement, however, is apparently nowhere in the current text of the memorandum of understanding, and it is not clear how central it would be to the next negotiation.

While the text of the agreement has not yet been published, Mr. Trump seemed to be describing Iranian concessions that the country has not yet made, or that have been kicked to the follow-up negotiations. The memorandum of understanding, for example, suspends tolls in the strait for only 60 days, and then promises a regional dialogue about the future. Iran had never charged tolls before the war, so the president is essentially celebrating a return to the prewar status quo.

Over the past three months of negotiations, led by the president’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, the Iranians insisted that they would never give up their right to enrich uranium under that treaty. Mr. Trump said they were still negotiating over whether Iran would suspend its enrichment for 20 years. Mr. Trump hinted that he might settle for a 15-year suspension, but did not want to negotiate via the press.

He also insisted that Iran would be forever limited to enriching at low levels that “could never be used by the military.”

“They can never go beyond a certain amount,” he said. But when asked whether that limit was the same as in the Obama-era agreement — which limited enrichment to 3.67 percent, a level that is usable in power reactors but not weaponry — he said only that the new accord would assure that “they can only enrich for nonmilitary purposes. Forever.”

Mr. Trump insisted, as his aides have, that Iran would receive no relief from sanctions or release of its frozen financial assets until it delivered on its commitments.

He maintained that he was in no rush to get the near-bomb-grade fuel out of its underground sites, where much of it is buried after the United States dropped bunker-busting bombs on Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan, all major nuclear facilities, a year ago.

He said the United States would, over time, join with Iran in “down-blending” the enriched nuclear material, which would bring it to reactor-grade. But he offered no deadline and sounded vague about the timing.

Mr. Trump also suggested that the United States would have what he called “strong policing powers” to make sure that Iran was not conducting nuclear work in violation of any of its commitments. He said that the previous deal allowed inspection demands to stretch out for months, but that the accord he is striking would provide for near-instant access. Iran has not spoken publicly about any such agreement.

read more in our Telegram-channel https://t.me/The_International_Affairs