Tehran (AFP) – Iran on Tuesday said talks with the United States on its nuclear programme and sanctions relief would likely begin later this week, as President Donald Trump’s announcement that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen sent oil prices tumbling. Officials say negotiations over a final deal will take place within a 60-day window after the memorandum of understanding to end nearly four months of war triggered by US-Israeli strikes on Iran is physically signed.
“Likely on Friday, at a location to be determined…a new round of negotiations between Iran and the United States to reach a final agreement will begin,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said. “In the final agreement, decisions will be made on the nuclear issues and the lifting of sanctions.” According to Iran’s deputy foreign minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi, the Islamic republic’s top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf will attend the signing in Switzerland, which Bern said would take place at the luxury Burgenstock resort overlooking Lake Lucerne.
The mountainside venue “was proposed by Pakistani and Qatari mediators, as well as by the US and Iran,” the Swiss foreign ministry told AFP. The US side will be represented by Vice President JD Vance, who said Trump might also attend. The developments came after Trump said an Iranian blockade on the crucial Hormuz strait oil and gas route would be fully lifted by Friday, which would be a major boost to the global economy. “Ships are starting to move, many loaded up with Oil, out of the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said Monday.
Optimism over the reopening of Hormuz has sent the price of the international benchmark Brent North Sea crude tumbling below $80 a barrel, a three-month low. The US had, in retaliation, imposed its own blockade on Iranian ports. Iranian state television said Iranian oil tankers and other vessels had resumed shipping following the deal, with Takht-Ravanchi saying the US blockade “has been lifted prior to the formal signing.” Sporadic episodes of violence since an April ceasefire had threatened a deal, but weeks of indirect negotiations mediated by Pakistan and Qatar built momentum for an interim agreement.
Yet a comprehensive agreement on Iran’s nuclear ambitions and Western sanctions remains elusive. Washington and close ally Israel are pressing to strip Iran of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, said to have been buried by US strikes last year, while Iran has insisted on its right to enrichment. The agreed framework has, however, paved the way for talks on those key disputes. Asked at the G7 in France when the text would be released, Trump said: “It’s a very powerful document, and I want it to be released. So probably pretty soon.”
Iran’s ultraconservative newspaper Vatan-e Emrooz praised the agreement as a “Trump surrender document.” But Araghchi struck a more cautious note. “We have a history of broken commitments…we have a history of agreements being torn up. All of this is present in our minds,” he said. A senior US administration official, however, said Trump, Vance and negotiator Ghalibaf had already signed the text electronically. In a flurry of interviews to talk up the deal, Vance said no US taxpayer money would go to Iran under the deal, as Iranian media reported $12 billion of frozen assets would be released. Vance told NBC that nuclear inspectors would also be allowed to enter Iran.
Analysts have warned that the parallel conflict in Lebanon between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah presents the biggest threat to the diplomatic thaw. Lebanon was pulled into the war in March when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel after the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, prompting Israeli strikes and a ground invasion. That theatre of the conflict could be “the biggest ultimate spoiler” of the coming negotiations, said Ross Harrison, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.
Lebanon’s president and prime minister on Tuesday discussed preparations for a new round of direct talks with Israel scheduled to begin next week, seeking a permanent truce and withdrawal of Israeli troops from the country’s south, according to a presidency statement. But Israeli figures quickly condemned the US-Iran deal that included Lebanon, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged that the country’s forces would remain in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria “for as long as necessary.” Araghchi, however, said ending the war on all fronts including Lebanon was “the most important” issue in the peace deal. “Ending the war in Lebanon is an inseparable part of the complete end of the war.”
© 2024 AFP
