U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his claims of momentum toward ending the conflict with Iran, after brokering a halt to hostilities between Israel and the Islamic Republic and easing tensions that had threatened to derail broader peace efforts.
“We’re in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal,” Trump told reporters in New York on Tuesday. “We could have at least an idea one or two days from now.”
The U.S. president spoke on Monday hours after Iran and Israel agreed to halt strikes on each other following a flare-up that saw both countries launch waves of ballistic missiles. He has repeatedly spoken of an interim agreement to end the war that began when the U.S. and Israel started bombing Iran in February. A ceasefire has been in place for about two months, but sporadic fighting among the U.S., Iran and Israel has continued, underscoring the risk of a return to full-scale war in the absence of a lasting peace deal.
Mediation efforts between the U.S. and Iran to strike a deal remain intense, according to people familiar with the matter.
Discussions between the mediators led by Pakistan and the two warring sides are ongoing, one of the people said, asking not to be named discussing private information. Talks between all parties are expected to continue this week, the person said.
Trump’s diplomatic tack is troubling Israel, which isn’t part of the negotiations and worries that a deal may leave Iran with the means to pose a threat in the future.
“We need to ensure that Iran comes out of this confrontation unable to reconstitute its own capabilities, as well as those of its proxies,“ said Orit Strock, a member of Israel’s security Cabinet, referring to groups like Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Interviewed on Israel’s Army Radio, she voiced hope that Tehran would not secure a windfall in sanctions relief.
“We’re doing everything possible to ensure that this doesn’t happen,” she said.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised statement on Monday that he would hold fire on Iran for now but would respond should Tehran attack again. Earlier, local TV station N12 reported that strikes in south Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, would continue at full force. On Tuesday, Israel told residents of Tyre in Lebanon to leave the area before a possible operation in the area.
Iran also announced an end to its military operations against Israel. But its central military command warned that if Israel continued to attack, including in southern Lebanon, “much harsher and more crushing actions than before will be on the way,” the semi-official Fars news agency reported, citing a statement.
Even as the clashes seemed to subside, a U.S. Army Apache helicopter went down near the Strait of Hormuz, according to U.S. Central Command. It wasn’t clear if the aircraft suffered mechanical troubles or had been shot down by Iran.
Asked about the episode, Trump said the pilots were fine and that a report would be released later Tuesday.
During a tele-rally for South Carolina Republicans on Monday evening, Trump predicted a swift end to the war and a subsequent fall in oil prices.
Global energy costs spiked after the conflict began and Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz, through which around a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically transited.
Brent crude, the global benchmark, fell 1.7% to around $93 a barrel, paring its gains since the beginning of the war to circa 30%. A Bloomberg gauge of the dollar edged lower.
Kuwait has offered to sell its crude to refiners in Asia for the first time since the war began, the latest indication that oil flows from Persian Gulf producers are opening up despite Tehran’s threat to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Attention remains focused on whether energy flows through Hormuz will recover significantly. A trickle of commercial shipping returned to the waterway over the weekend, even as the risks prompted some vessels to travel with their digital transponders switched off.
Offering another potential front of escalation, the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen said they had launched a missile barrage on Israel and would be imposing a “complete and total ban on maritime navigation for the Israeli enemy in the Red Sea,” according to a statement on their Telegram channel on Monday.
On Monday night, the Israel Defense Forces reported that a “suspicious aerial target” from Yemen was intercepted after sirens sounded in the area of Eilat.
The most recent bout of fighting between Iran and Israel began on Sunday. Israel intercepted Iran’s barrages while striking targets in Tehran and the Karun petrochemical company in Mahshahr. Tehran warned it would target all oil and gas facilities linked to Israel, the U.S. and their allies in the region if attacks on its own energy infrastructure continued, according to Fars.
Iran began its offensive after Israeli strikes on the Lebanese capital Beirut, marking a rare example of Tehran coming to the defense of Hezbollah. The clashes posed the most serious challenge yet to the fragile ceasefire that took hold on April 8.
Israel has insisted that any U.S.- Iran agreement won’t cover its conflict with Hezbollah. Iran has sought to keep Hezbollah under its security umbrella, while Trump has prioritized securing a deal.
—With assistance from Eltaf Najafizada and Omar Tamo.
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