Iran and US Reach Initial Deal to End War But Challenges Remain

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 were not immediately released, but it appeared that it would not be implemented until it is signed, which mediator Pakistan said would 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’s defense minister said Monday that the country wouldn’t withdraw from land seized in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group. Israel joined the U.S. in launching the war on Feb. 28, but it is not party to the deal. 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 it 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

Trump, who faced pressure to end the war ahead of congressional midterm elections in November, hailed the agreement on social media, saying he had authorized the Strait of Hormuz to open and the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports to end. He later said the strait wouldn’t open until Friday.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, confirmed the agreement on state television but said Iran would not start implementing it until it was signed.

Early in the war, Iranian attacks on ships brought traffic in the crucial waterway—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.

The closure of the strait, Iranian attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure and the blockade sent fuel prices skyrocketing, and the knock-on effects rippled through the world economy. Energy experts say it will likely take months before energy companies can resume operations to the point of meeting the world’s demand.

Iranian and U.S. officials will hold preparatory meetings in Doha, Qatar, this week before the signing, said a diplomat with direct knowledge of the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door meetings.

Vice President JD Vance said an interim deal to end the conflict was electronically signed Sunday ahead of the planned ceremony in Switzerland. The White House hopes to release the memorandum of understanding in the coming days, he said.

“I think when people see this deal … they’re going to realize that this is going to make the whole region safer,” Vance said Monday in an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

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.

Defense Minister Israel Katz, meanwhile, said Israel plans to stay “indefinitely” in land it holds in Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip. Over the past 2 1/2 years, Israel has taken control of areas in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria amounting to 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of territory.

Katz also threatened that if Iran attacks Israel over its strikes in Lebanon, Israel will strike Iran with “great force.”

In response to questions about where Israel stands on the deal, David Mencer, a spokesman in Netanyahu’s office, told The Associated Press that Israel and the U.S. remain fully aligned on preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. But he added that Israel will not tolerate attacks from Hezbollah on its territory and will continue to act against those who seek to harm its citizens.

Israel and the U.S. began the war apparently in lockstep, but the war has created deep fractures in that close relationship, with Trump eager to end a conflict that is deeply unpopular with the American public and Netanyahu intent on destroying Hezbollah. Trump appears to have grown increasingly frustrated with the Israeli leader, even occasionally publicly insulting him, including telling The New York Times on Sunday that he was a “very difficult guy.”

Many Lebanese Travel to Check on Homes

In a sign of the tenuousness of the deal, the Lebanese army called on residents not to rush to return to border villages, saying they should follow military instructions because of the danger of “Israeli violations and aggression.”

Many Lebanese who had fled following Israeli evacuation orders and intense fighting were heading south, however, to check on their homes. Celine Fayad, driving south, said she will test how far she could go. Her village, Aitaroun, is along the border with Israel. It was among the first to be occupied and lies in ruins.

“We were expecting to return,” she said. “Thanks to Iran.”

Ali Haidar was among the first to return to Nabatiyeh, the southern city at the heart of the latest Israeli military operations, where many central buildings have been reduced to dust.

“This used to be our home, our childhood home where we have all of our memories. This is where we grew up. Now it’s gone,” Haidar said. “We will return to rubble and sand. It’s better than being displaced.”

In its first public statement after the deal’s announcement, Hezbollah credited Iran with a “major achievement” in reaching the agreement, which it said could lead to “the full liberation of our land, the return of our prisoners to their homeland and families,” and reconstruction of war-devastated areas.

The militant group added that “there will be no return to the situation that existed before March 2,” referring to the 15 months leading up to its latest war with Israel, when a ceasefire was officially in place but Israel continued to carry out regular strikes in Lebanon that it said aimed to stop Hezbollah from rebuilding.

World leaders welcome the deal

Despite the uncertainties, world leaders from Europe to China welcomed the agreement. French President Emmanuel Macron, who is hosting Trump and other world leaders at a Group of Seven summit this week, said France and other Western partners are “ready to take action very quickly” to help restore normal shipping traffic in the strait once the U.S. and Iran agree to such a mission.

“We already have forces in the area,” including France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, Macron said in an interview Monday on French television TF1.

Others have expressed caution that the deal remains tentative. Luxembourg’s foreign minister, Xavier Bettel, noted: “It’s a long time till Friday.”

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Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece. Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Will Weissert and Aamer Madhani in Washington; Julia Frankel in Jerusalem; Abby Sewell and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut; Najib Jobain in Doha, Qatar; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; and Sylvie Corbet in Evian-les-Bains, France, contributed to this report.