Iran says the deal to end the war with the US requires Israel to withdraw from Lebanon

Iran’s top diplo­mat said Tues­day that the ten­ta­tive deal to end the war with the Unit­ed States would re­quire Is­rael to with­draw from Lebanon — a con­di­tion Is­rael has al­ready re­ject­ed and that could sink the agree­ment, lead­ing to the re­sump­tion of all-out war.

The deal, which is be­tween the U.S. and Iran, has not been made pub­lic, and of­fi­cials have some­times of­fered con­tra­dic­to­ry in­ter­pre­ta­tions of what is in it. While Is­rael is not par­ty to the agree­ment, it is part of the war: It joined the U.S. in launch­ing strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, and has since fought the Iran-backed Hezbol­lah mil­i­tant group in Lebanon and seized large swaths of that coun­try.

Iran­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Ab­bas Araghchi said Is­rael’s con­tin­ued oc­cu­pa­tion of south­ern Lebanon would vi­o­late the deal.

“With­out the with­draw­al of Is­raeli forces from the ter­ri­to­ries they oc­cu­pied dur­ing this war, the war has not ful­ly come to an end,” Araghchi said.

A U.S. of­fi­cial, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss out­lines of the agree­ment, has said the deal did not call for an Is­raeli with­draw­al. And Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu said Mon­day that Is­rael would re­main in Lebanon “as long as nec­es­sary.”

The ne­go­ti­a­tions to end the war have been plagued by such dis­agree­ments be­fore, lead­ing to a pro­longed but un­easy cease­fire that has failed to de­vel­op in­to a per­ma­nent end to hos­til­i­ties and has left the Strait of Hor­muz, a cru­cial wa­ter­way for the world’s en­er­gy sup­plies, ef­fec­tive­ly shut.

In oth­er de­vel­op­ments, Switzer­land’s for­eign min­istry said the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the deal will take place Fri­day at the Bür­gen­stock re­sort near the city of Luzern. Min­istry of­fi­cials said Tues­day that the lo­ca­tion was pro­posed by Pak­istani and Qatari me­di­a­tors, along with the U.S. and Iran.

Lebanon tests the dura­bil­i­ty of the deal

Pak­istan, a key me­di­a­tor, has said the deal called for an end to mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions, in­clud­ing in Lebanon, as Iran long in­sist­ed. But Araghchi’s call for an Is­raeli with­draw­al adds a new wrin­kle.

It puts Is­rael in­to a dilem­ma as it tries to de­grade Hezbol­lah’s mil­i­tary ca­pa­bil­i­ties with­out un­der­min­ing an agree­ment cham­pi­oned by its most im­por­tant al­ly, the Unit­ed States. Is­rael in­vad­ed south­ern Lebanon af­ter Hezbol­lah fired mis­siles across the bor­der dur­ing the first week of the war. Since then, it has ex­pand­ed its mil­i­tary foot­print to lev­els un­seen in decades and struck tar­gets deep in­side Beirut.

Though Hezbol­lah has been weak­ened, it re­tains the abil­i­ty to strike Is­rael, leav­ing open ques­tions about the ef­fec­tive­ness of Is­rael’s cam­paign.

As of Tues­day evening, Ne­tanyahu had not seen the mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing be­tween the U.S. and Iran, said a per­son fa­mil­iar with the sit­u­a­tion, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty to dis­cuss closed-door de­tails. Ne­tanyahu’s of­fice did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to re­quest for com­ment from The As­so­ci­at­ed Press.

The ex­tent of Is­rael’s strikes have at times opened a pub­lic frac­ture be­tween its lead­ers and U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, who told re­porters Tues­day that he was “not hap­py with the way Is­rael has han­dled them­selves with Lebanon and with Hezbol­lah.”

“It just goes on for­ev­er,” he said of Is­rael’s strat­e­gy. Is­raeli strikes in Lebanon have killed near­ly 4,000 peo­ple, in­clud­ing hun­dreds of civil­ians, and dis­placed more than 1 mil­lion. “Is­rael’s fight­ing Hezbol­lah too long, and too many peo­ple are be­ing killed,” he said.

Trump said he’s open to send­ing the emerg­ing agree­ment to the U.S. Con­gress for re­view.

Speak­ing on the side­lines of the Group of Sev­en sum­mit in the French Alps, Trump said, “I like the idea, send it to Con­gress please.” He added, “I mean who wouldn’t ap­prove it.”

Re­pub­li­cans on Capi­tol Hill say they want Trump to pro­vide more in­for­ma­tion about the agree­ment, with some ex­press­ing skep­ti­cism that the deal can de­ter Iran from pur­su­ing a nu­clear weapon.

Is­rael and the Lebanese gov­ern­ment have en­tered in­to their own U.S.-me­di­at­ed di­rect ne­go­ti­a­tions, of which Hezbol­lah was not a part. Those talks have yield­ed sev­er­al an­nounced cease­fires that were nev­er im­ple­ment­ed on the ground. Lebanese of­fi­cials ini­tial­ly tried to keep Lebanon sep­a­rate from the U.S.-Iran ne­go­ti­a­tions, not want­i­ng to be seen as be­hold­en to Iran, but they have since wel­comed the an­nounce­ment that the deal to end the U.S.-Iran war would in­clude a cease­fire in Lebanon.

Araghchi’s lat­est com­ments ap­pear to match the un­der­stand­ing of two re­gion­al of­fi­cials with di­rect knowl­edge of the in­ter­im deal. The of­fi­cials, speak­ing to AP on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss the closed-door ne­go­ti­a­tions, said it would re­quire Is­rael to leave near­ly all the ter­ri­to­ry it oc­cu­pies in Lebanon, mi­nus a few hill­top points along the bor­der seized ear­li­er.

The of­fi­cials say Iran in­sist­ed the ac­cord in­clude Lebanon in the last days of the ne­go­ti­a­tions.

De­spite unan­swered ques­tions, US al­lies push to make deal work at G7 sum­mit

Lebanon is on­ly one of sev­er­al ma­jor ques­tions hang­ing over the cease­fire ahead of the planned cer­e­mo­ni­al sign­ing.

The agree­ment is meant to pro­vide a mean­ing­ful truce in a month­s­long war that 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 agree­ment pro­vides for the “im­me­di­ate” open­ing of the Strait of Hor­muz and the lift­ing of the Amer­i­can naval block­ade of Iran­ian ports, ac­cord­ing to a se­nior U.S. of­fi­cial who spoke to re­porters Mon­day on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss out­lines of the agree­ment.

Pak­istani of­fi­cials who helped bro­ker the agree­ment al­so de­scribed plans for the si­mul­ta­ne­ous lift­ing of Iran’s clo­sure of the strait and the U.S. block­ade.

The Unit­ed States and Iran will then be­gin 60 days of ne­go­ti­a­tions over Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram and the po­ten­tial lift­ing of sanc­tions, Pak­istani of­fi­cials who helped bro­ker the in­ter­im deal said, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty about the un­pub­lished text.

The pact al­so in­cludes the pos­si­bil­i­ty of re­leas­ing Iran’s frozen funds and a $300 bil­lion fund to help re­build Iran if Tehran meets cer­tain bench­marks, se­nior U.S. of­fi­cials told re­porters Mon­day. Trump lat­er said the Unit­ed States would not “in­vest” funds in Iran.

Re­gard­ing the time­line, re­gion­al of­fi­cials who spoke to AP about the deal said the re­lease of frozen Iran­ian as­sets would be tied to Tehran im­ple­ment­ing the deal. Gulf Arab states al­so have pledged to in­ject bil­lions of dol­lars in Iran’s econ­o­my, they added, speak­ing on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss the ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram, specif­i­cal­ly the fate of its stock­pile of high­ly en­riched ura­ni­um, would be sub­ject to the 60-day clock. Iran has agreed to dis­cuss ways to pos­si­bly “di­lute or re­move” it, the of­fi­cials said. How­ev­er, it re­mains un­clear whether Tehran would agree to that, par­tic­u­lar­ly with hard-lin­ers op­pos­ing to giv­ing it up.

U.S. of­fi­cials have not yet ex­plained how they see the agree­ment ad­dress­ing Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram, in­clud­ing who will be in charge of ver­i­fy­ing that Iran is in com­pli­ance and who will de­stroy or re­move high­ly en­riched ura­ni­um be­lieved to be buried un­der nu­clear sites that were bad­ly dam­aged by U.S. strikes last sum­mer.

Still, world lead­ers gath­er­ing in France for the first full day of the G7 sum­mit in­sist­ed the agree­ment need­ed to suc­ceed, even as key ques­tions re­mained unan­swered.

Some had clashed with Trump over not con­sult­ing them be­fore go­ing to war. But the lead­ers of France, Ger­many, Italy and the Unit­ed King­dom is­sued a joint state­ment con­grat­u­lat­ing the Unit­ed States, the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment and the me­di­a­tors on what they called a “diplo­mat­ic break­through,” say­ing it was vi­tal for the deal to be quick­ly im­ple­ment­ed.

French Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron said France and oth­er West­ern na­tions were “ready to take ac­tion very quick­ly” to help re­open the Strait of Hor­muz peace­ful­ly.

SOURCE: AP