EVIAN-LES-BAINS, FRANCE/DUBAI, June 17 (Reuters) – The United States and Iran on Wednesday released the text of an interim agreement their presidents signed to end the war, with U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to resume attacks and kill Iranian officials if they did not meet their commitments.
Trump, attending the G7 with other leaders in France, also withdrew at least one of his stated reasons for attacking Iran in the first place, saying it would be ‘unfair’ for Tehran not to have ballistic missiles, having previously promised to destroy them.
“We’re going to bomb them to no end if they violate the deal,” Trump said of Iran at a news conference. ‘I don’t want them to do that. I want them to honor the agreement.’ He also called the Iranians ‘smart people’ as US and Iranian negotiators work on a permanent truce over the next 60 days, which Trump says he hopes will bring peace to the Middle East and lower oil prices.
Before, he had said: ‘If I don’t like it, if they don’t behave, we will immediately go back to dropping bombs right in their heads, OK?’
Iranian leaders did not address the new threats as they celebrated the moment, releasing photographs of what is believed to be the first agreement signed by the presidents of the United States and Iran since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979.
‘Everything we sought to achieve through military action, we obtained several times over through negotiation; it wasn’t even comparable,’ Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, told state television about the deal, which includes the unfreezing of billions of dollars in Iranian assets.
The US and Israel began the war against Iran on February 28, assassinating Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, and military leaders on the first day. The conflict quickly escalated into a regional conflict that killed more than 7,000 people, mainly in Iran and Lebanon; raised energy prices; renewed inflationary pressures and raised concerns about a serious food supply crisis in developing countries.
The 14-point agreement extends a ceasefire announced in April for another 60 days, including in Lebanon, to allow the two sides to negotiate a final truce. Both Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian digitally signed the memorandum in English and Farsi, according to U.S. and Iranian officials, with Iran’s Foreign Ministry saying the deal was already in effect as of Wednesday.
Trump signed it shortly before a gala dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles, the site of the signing of the treaty of the same name that formally ended the First World War.
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G7 LEADERS APPROVE AGREEMENT WITH IRAN
The memorandum includes an immediate end to the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, the full resumption of ‘free of charge’ maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, the lifting of the US blockade of Iranian ports, the lifting of US sanctions against Iran, the unfreezing of its assets and a US$300 billion investment fund for the post-war reconstruction of the Islamic Republic.
Oil prices fell again on Wednesday on prospects for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow and vital waterway between Iran and Oman, with Brent crude futures below $80, at their lowest level since the start of the war. They later recovered more than 1% after Trump threatened to resume violence.
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Iran also pledges not to build nuclear weapons, reaffirming a promise it made decades ago. The country also agreed to on-site ‘dilution’ of its stockpile of enriched uranium, under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, although Trump wanted to remove it from the country – which Iran rejected.
Despite his combative rhetoric, Trump appears to have achieved little than he said he wanted by going to war, while Iran appears much closer to billions of dollars worth of sanctions relief than it was before it was attacked.
The theocratic Iranian government remains in power, its stockpile of highly enriched uranium has not been surrendered, its ballistic missile capabilities have not been destroyed, and it has not ended its support for anti-Israel militias such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
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Trump has backtracked on his February promise to destroy all of Iran’s missiles and ‘ram its missile industry to the ground.’
“I’m saying if other countries have them, it’s a little unfair that they don’t have some,” Trump told reporters in Paris after leaving the summit.
G7 leaders welcomed the agreement at their summit, held in the French city of Evian-les-Bains, an hour’s drive along the shore of Lake Geneva, where the United States had said a formal signing ceremony for the U.S.-Iran deal was expected to take place on the Swiss border on Friday.
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But Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei cast doubt on this, telling IRIB News Network that since the two presidents had already signed, ‘no signing ceremony will be held in Switzerland’.
European leaders share the United States’ concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, but have never endorsed its decision to go to war without authorization from the United Nations and fear that Iran has gained influence by resisting the superpower’s onslaught and asserting its control over the straits.
The leaders of France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, Italy, Canada and the United States in a joint statement demanded an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, where the memorandum calls for the suspension of hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, which have killed thousands of people and displaced more than a million.
Fighting has eased but not ceased since the deal was reached on Sunday, and Israel, which did not take part in the negotiations and whose army occupies southern Lebanon, maintains it retains the right to use force.
