Will the US and Iran remotely hold peace talks today? What we know so far – the reopening of Hormuz on the agenda, nuclear issues not | Today’s news
As US President Donald Trump said peace talks with Iran would conclude on Sunday, June 14, Tehran signaled that more time was needed while remaining optimistic about the deal.
Meanwhile, Pakistan, one of the key mediators, said a deal was now closer than ever.
According to an Axios report, Pakistani and Qatari mediators are expected to hold a virtual meeting today to electronically sign a memorandum of understanding that:
- extend the ceasefire – effective from April 7 – by 60 days,
- reopen the Strait of Hormuz and
- start negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.
The peace deal, if concluded today, is significant as it is expected to end more than 100 days of hostilities exchanged between the US, Israel, Iran and Lebanon.
Read also | US-Iran news LIVE: Will Tehran and Washington sign a peace deal today?
Trump said the Strait of Hormuz – a critical waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil is transported – would be immediately “open to all” after the signing.
Who said what
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the deal should be finalized within 24 hours.
However, Iranian press quoted the country’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei as saying that the signing “will not happen” on Sunday, but “the likelihood of the MoU being finalized in the coming days is high.”
On the one hand, Trump has repeatedly claimed in recent weeks that the countries were on the verge of a deal. Iran, on the other hand, was cautious about the peace deal, pointing out that previous negotiations with the US had inadvertently led to attacks by Israel and the US.
G7 Summit
The move to speed up the completion of a peace deal with Iran comes ahead of a 2-day G7 summit in France that starts on Monday.
President Trump is expected to meet with the leaders of Egypt, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on the sidelines of the G7 to discuss demining the Strait of Hormuz, the Associated Press reported, citing sources.
A U.S. official told Axios that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman was also invited but could not attend due to scheduling reasons. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also not expected to attend, the US official said.
G7 members Britain and France have expressed an interest in demining assistance once the conflict is suspended.
It was not clear how many mines are in the strait, which has been in Iran’s chokehold since the conflict began in late February.
No discussion of the nuclear issue
Baghaei clarified that the MoU under discussion was aimed at ending the war and “at this stage it was decided that there would be no discussion on the nuclear issue”.
Trump constantly pokes at Iran over its nuclear program and highly enriched uranium. In a post on social media, he said that “when everything is calm” the US will step in and “mix and destroy” the enriched uranium in Iran or the United States.
“At the appropriate time, when all is calm, we will go in and retrieve the nuclear dust, buried deep beneath the mighty sunken granite mountains, thanks to our beautiful B-2 bombers and their brilliant pilots, and mix it up and destroy it, either in Iran or in the United States,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
