US and Iran prepare for ceasefire talks as Netanyahu authorizes negotiations with Lebanon

Ne­go­tia­tors from Iran and the U.S. pre­pared for high-lev­el talks with their cease­fire still shaky Fri­day, as Is­rael and Hezbol­lah trad­ed fire and Tehran main­tained its stran­gle­hold on the Strait of Hor­muz.

There re­main many is­sues that could de­rail the truce — as well as ne­go­ti­a­tions for a broad­er deal to per­ma­nent­ly end the war.

Iran’s semi­of­fi­cial Tas­nim news agency, close to the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard, claimed that talks set for Sat­ur­day wouldn’t hap­pen un­less Is­rael stopped its at­tacks in Lebanon. And U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump com­plained that Iran was “do­ing a very poor job” by not al­low­ing the free flow of ships through the strait, through which 20% of the world’s trad­ed oil once passed.

Kuwait, mean­while, said it faced a drone at­tack Thurs­day night that it blamed on Iran and its mili­tia al­lies in the re­gion. Though Iran’s para­mil­i­tary Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard de­nied launch­ing any as­sault, it has car­ried out at­tacks across the Mideast in the past that it did not claim.

And yet, prepa­ra­tions for the talks be­tween Iran and the U.S. ap­peared to be mov­ing for­ward, with U.S. Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance mak­ing his way to Pak­istan from Wash­ing­ton. Ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween Is­rael and Lebanon, mean­while, are ex­pect­ed to be­gin next week in Wash­ing­ton, ac­cord­ing to a U.S. of­fi­cial and a per­son fa­mil­iar with the plans, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty due to the del­i­ca­cy of the mat­ter.

Be­fore his de­par­ture, Vance said he be­lieves ne­go­ti­a­tion with Iran will be “pos­i­tive.”

But he added, “If they’re gonna try and play us, then they’re gonna find that the ne­go­ti­at­ing team is not that re­cep­tive.”

Is­rael and Lebanon will have di­rect ne­go­ti­a­tions

Is­rael’s in­sis­tence that the cease­fire in Iran does not in­clude a pause in its fight­ing with Hezbol­lah, which joined the war in sup­port of its backer, Iran, has threat­ened to scup­per the deal.

The day the truce was an­nounced, Is­rael pound­ed Beirut with airstrikes, killing more than 300 peo­ple, ac­cord­ing to Lebanon’s Health Min­istry. It was the dead­liest day in the coun­try since the war be­gan Feb. 28.

Trump said Thurs­day that he has asked Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu to di­al back the strikes. Ear­ly Fri­day, Is­rael’s mil­i­tary said it hit ap­prox­i­mate­ly 10 launch­ers in Lebanon that had fired rock­ets to­ward north­ern Is­rael a day ear­li­er.

Iran’s par­lia­ment speak­er, Mo­ham­mad Bagher Qal­ibaf, warned Thurs­day that con­tin­ued Is­raeli at­tacks on Hezbol­lah would bring “ex­plic­it costs and STRONG re­spons­es.”

Ne­tanyahu, mean­while, said that he au­tho­rized the ne­go­ti­a­tions with Lebanon “as soon as pos­si­ble” with the aim of dis­arm­ing Hezbol­lah mil­i­tants and es­tab­lish­ing re­la­tions be­tween the neigh­bors, which have tech­ni­cal­ly been at war since Is­rael was es­tab­lished in 1948.

The Lebanese gov­ern­ment had not re­spond­ed as of ear­ly af­ter­noon Fri­day. The tim­ing and lo­ca­tion of the talks were first re­port­ed by Ax­ios.

In a first state­ment since Is­rael an­nounced di­rect ne­go­ti­a­tions with Lebanon, Hezbol­lah chief Naim Kassem urged Lebanese of­fi­cials to stop of­fer­ing “free con­ces­sions” but did not take a clear stance on the talks.

Two days af­ter Is­rael’s in­tense bar­rage, peo­ple sift­ed through the wreck­age of their homes, try­ing to sal­vage what­ev­er fur­ni­ture and per­son­al me­men­tos they could find. Some ex­pressed grat­i­tude that they did not lose their loved ones.

“There is no sub­sti­tute for fam­i­ly,” said Wis­sam Tabi­la, 35. “Every­thing else can be re­placed.”

The Strait of Hor­muz re­mains a stick­ing point

Iran’s clo­sure of the Strait of Hor­muz has sent oil prices sky­rock­et­ing, dri­ven stocks down and roiled the world econ­o­my. Tehran’s con­trol over the wa­ter­way has proved its biggest strate­gic ad­van­tage in the war.

The spot price of Brent crude, the in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard, was around $97 Fri­day, up more than 30% since the war start­ed.

Be­fore the con­flict, over 100 ships passed through the strait each day — many car­ry­ing oil to Asia. With the cease­fire in place, on­ly 12 have been record­ed pass­ing through.

Un­der­scor­ing the pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion, a Botswana-flagged liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas tanker at­tempt­ed to trav­el out of the Per­sian Gulf via a route or­dered by the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard, but sud­den­ly turned around ear­ly Fri­day, ship-track­ing da­ta showed.

The head of the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates’ ma­jor oil com­pa­ny, Sul­tan al-Jaber, said some 230 ships loaded with oil were wait­ing to get through the strait and must be al­lowed “to nav­i­gate this cor­ri­dor with­out con­di­tion.”

Trump com­plained about that sit­u­a­tion, writ­ing on his so­cial me­dia plat­form: “Iran is do­ing a very poor job, dis­hon­or­able some would say, of al­low­ing Oil to go through the Strait of Hor­muz.”

“That is not the agree­ment we have!” Trump wrote of the trick­le of ships Iran has al­lowed to pass.

The cease­fire deal is still frag­ile

Ques­tions al­so re­main over the fate of Iran’s mis­sile and nu­clear pro­grams — which the U.S. and Is­rael sought to elim­i­nate in go­ing to war.

The U.S. in­sists Iran must nev­er be able to build nu­clear weapons and wants to re­move Tehran’s stock­pile of high­ly en­riched ura­ni­um, which could be used to make them. Iran in­sists its pro­gram is peace­ful.

Trump has said that the U.S. would work with Iran to re­move the ura­ni­um, though Tehran has not con­firmed that.

The chief of Iran’s nu­clear agency, Mo­ham­mad Es­la­mi, said Thurs­day that pro­tect­ing Tehran’s right to en­rich ura­ni­um is “nec­es­sary” for any cease­fire talks.

More than 3,000 peo­ple have been killed in Iran, a top Iran­ian of­fi­cer told the state-run Iran news­pa­per. Iran’s gov­ern­ment has not pro­vid­ed any de­fin­i­tive death toll from the week­s­long war.

In Lebanon, more than 1,888 peo­ple have been killed and 1 mil­lion have been dis­placed. Over a dozen peo­ple have died in Gulf Arab states and the oc­cu­pied West Bank, while 23 civil­ians were killed in Is­rael. Thir­teen U.S. ser­vice mem­bers have been killed.

Mean­while, Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Ze­len­skyy said that Ukrain­ian forces shot down Iran­ian‑de­signed Sha­hed drones in sev­er­al Mid­dle East­ern coun­tries dur­ing the Iran war. The mis­sions, car­ried out with do­mes­ti­cal­ly pro­duced in­ter­cep­tor drones, were part of ef­forts to help part­ners counter the same weapons Rus­sia us­es in Ukraine, he said.

DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (AP)