Trump says war-ending deal with Iran reached

President Trump and the prime minister of Pakistan said Sunday that the U.S. and Iran had reached an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end more than three months of war.

“I hereby fully authorize the toll-free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade. Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social early Sunday evening.

Kazem Ghribabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, confirmed that a deal had been reached and said a ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. would begin tonight.

Further negotiations for a final settlement with Washington would continue over the next 60 days.

“The text of the memorandum of understanding will be published shortly, and the public will be able to see Iran’s achievements and commitments,” he said, according to state-affiliated media. “Our commitments are not comparable to our gains.”

In a social media post, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that the two parties had agreed after intensive talks. The official signing of the agreement will take place on June 19 in Switzerland.

SEE ALSO: Trump urges restraint in Lebanon as peace deal hangs in the balance

“Both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” Mr. Sharif wrote.

Pakistani and Qatari mediators have worked for weeks to deliver an agreement that would extend the battered ceasefire between the two countries, signed in April, allow for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and provide time to discuss Iran’s nuclear program and other complex issues.

The announcement comes after a tense Sunday, as continued Israeli attacks on a Hezbollah stronghold in Lebanon threatened to upend progress made during negotiations between Iran and the U.S.

In a Truth Social post earlier in the day, Mr. Trump said that the Israel military’s attack on the Beirut suburb of Dahiya should not have happened “particularly on a special day when we are so close to a Peace Deal with Iran.”

He clarified that Israel has the right to defend itself and respond to missile and drone attacks from Hezbollah, but that “the attack it was responding to was very small and meaningless, nobody was hurt, injured, or killed, and should not disrupt this important process.”

“We are very close to a Deal that will bring peace to the region, including to Lebanon, and all sides should stand down. There should be no more attacks by Israel anywhere in Lebanon, but there should also be no more attacks by any other party, including Hezbollah, against Israel. This could be the beginning of a long and beautiful peace — Let’s not blow it!” Mr. Trump wrote.

SEE ALSO: Obama ‘doubtful’ Trump’s Iran deal will be different than the one he signed in 2015

The Israeli military said it launched attacks on Hezbollah infrastructure in Dahiya, a majority-Shia suburb of Beirut. The Islamist militia has long maintained a strong presence in the neighborhood, and the Israeli military has repeatedly bombed the area over the past 20 years.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote in a statement that the strikes were retaliation for a barrage of missiles and drones sent by Hezbollah earlier in the day.

The Israeli military said its forces had detected three projectiles fired into northern Israel.

Israel and Hezbollah have been at war since early March, when the Iran-backed guerrilla group fired rockets into northern Israel following the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Feb. 28 in an Israeli airstrike.

Although the U.S. has mediated an official ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, Hezbollah has not participated in any peace negotiations and has affirmed it will not respect the terms of a deal that does not include the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the southern part of Lebanon.

Tehran has repeatedly said that any comprehensive peace agreement with Washington should include a full ceasefire across the region, including in Lebanon, where Israel has kept up a steady stream of attacks on Hezbollah’s positions.

The Israeli military last week launched similar strikes near Beirut, resulting in retaliatory attacks by Iran on the Jewish state.

Mohammad Baker Ghalibaff, one of Iran’s chief negotiators with Washington, said that Israel’s attacks on Dahiya will hamper the U.S. ability to achieve concessions during negotiations.

“By giving the green light to the regime, you cannot gain concessions. The game of bad cop and good cop is outdated,” he wrote on X. “If you lack the will and ability to fulfill your commitments, speaking of continuing the path is not possible.”

In addition to reopening the Strait of Hormuz, Mr. Trump entered the war with Iran in February, insisting that Iran may never obtain a nuclear weapon.

Washington has also demanded that Tehran dismantle its uranium enrichment facilities, which were bombed by the U.S. and Israel last June.

Mr. Trump has also floated the idea of taking control of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium or otherwise diluting it below its current level.

Washington has also called for Iran to abandon its nuclear program entirely, something Iran has refused to do during previous rounds of talks.

Iran has maintained that it does not have a nuclear weapon and does not seek to build one, but that it has the right under international law to enrich uranium for civilian use. Nuclear watchdogs note that Iran has enriched uranium far above what would be necessary for any purpose other than nuclear weapons.

Under the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, signed in 2015, Iran agreed to limits on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. After Mr. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the deal, Iran ramped up its enrichment efforts significantly.

Former President Barack Obama doubted that any deal the Trump administration can secure will improve on the terms of the JCPOA.

“It is doubtful that any agreement that arises is going to be significantly different or a significant improvement from the deal that we had in the first place and worked, for a long stretch of time before we, the United States, pulled out of it,” Mr. Obama said in an interview that will air on ABC News this week.

Sen. Jack Reed, Rhode Island Democrat, echoed that sentiment on Sunday, doubting that a peace deal would even be reached by the end of the day and lamenting the cost of the war.

“We have spent billions of dollars, we’ve lost 14 personnel killed in action, hundreds wounded and we disrupted the world economy and we’re getting basically less than we had under the JCPOA, which President Trump walked away from,” Mr. Reed said.

He also dismissed a possible deal on Sunday as a vanity move by Mr. Trump on his 80th birthday.

“For 100 days we’ve been hearing constantly, ’there’s going to be a deal, there’s going to be a deal,’” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” “I think the precipitating issue today, the president wants to give himself a birthday present, and we have paid for it with hundreds of billions of dollars.”