TEL AVIV/DUBAI/WASHINGTON: The United States’ top diplomat sought backing from sceptical Gulf allies on Wednesday for President Donald Trump’s deal with Iran to end their war, while in another challenge to the accord, Israel insisted it would keep troops in southern Lebanon.
The US and Iran signed an initial accord last week to end a war that has upended the Middle East and pressured global economies with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a transit point for a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies. Under the deal, the strait is now slowly reopening and on Wednesday benchmark oil prices fell more than $3 to their lowest level since before the war started as supply concerns eased further.
But conflicting accounts have emerged over elements of the deal, which has prompted criticism of Trump at home and in the Middle East. Financial incentives for Iran, control of the Strait of Hormuz and Israel’s parallel war in Lebanon have all been disputed, highlighting the fragility of the accord.
“We’re winning by a lot. Iran is making very big concessions,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday.
Speaking in Kuwait City, the second stopover in a tour of three Gulf nations, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US was “completely aligned with our partners in the Gulf”.
“We’re not going to do anything that undermines the security of our allies, our longstanding allies in the region,” he told reporters before heading to Bahrain.
He said that he believed technical talks between the US and Iran would resume on June 29 or 30 in Switzerland. “The technical group will be back, I believe, on the 29th or the 30th... I believe they’re going back to Switzerland, if I’m not mistaken,” Rubio said.
Rubio also reiterated the Trump administration’s opposition to Iran’s demand to charge tolls on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, something also opposed by Washington’s Gulf allies.
The proposed peace deal has been met with scepticism in the Middle East, where many states came under attack from Iran during the war and view the accord as too generous to Tehran, including a $300 billion fund and the waiver of some sanctions.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz both stressed again on Wednesday that Israel would not pull troops out of southern Lebanon, where they say they have created a security zone to protect residents of northern Israel.
“The IDF is prepared ... and we are not retreating. We announced that in any case we are not withdrawing, and as of this moment — and this is a political achievement — there is no American demand for Israel to withdraw from Lebanon,” Katz said in an onstage interview at a conference in Tel Aviv.
He made his comments as Lebanon and Israel discuss a US-backed proposal at talks in Washington for Israeli forces to pull out of some of the territory it invaded in the war and hand it to Lebanese-army control.
“For us, a ceasefire in Lebanon is as important as a ceasefire in Iran, and further, an end to the war in Lebanon is as important as an end to the war in Iran,” Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on Wednesday.
An Israeli drone strike on a car in southern Lebanon killed at least two people on Wednesday, Lebanese security and medical sources told Reuters.
Rubio held a working lunch on Wednesday with United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan before moving on to Kuwait. He was also due to visit Bahrain.
Responding to Rubio’s comments in Kuwait, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on X: “We can’t have a peaceful region so long as American militarism and interventionism persist, and their occupying proxy (Israel) continues, with absolute impunity, to inflict endless wars across the region and perpetrate genocide...”
“The Islamabad understanding was not the result of pressure and coercion, but rather the result of the resistance and authority of the brave Iranian nation,” Ghalibaf said Wednesday of the deal, which was finalised through Pakistan’s mediation. “That is why, the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding became a declaration of America’s defeat,” he said, adding that security in the Middle East must be ensured by the countries of the region.
Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday that inspections at Iranian atomic sites were “going to happen” but did not offer a specific timeline.
On Wednesday, the Iranian official overseeing technical discussions in negotiations with Washington reiterated that no agreement had been reached on IAEA inspections. Iran has “no plans to grant access to the targeted facilities or to nuclear materials”, Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said, referring to sites attacked by US and Israeli forces.
Gharibabadi also said Iran had refused to meet with Grossi in Switzerland despite his requests.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he had been assured by Iran that no fees will be collected from ships in the Strait of Hormuz, as negotiations continue to secure a lasting end to the war in the Middle East. “Iran has informed the US that... there are ´NO TOLLS, NO INSURANCE COSTS, & NO OTHER CHARGES OF ANY KIND BEING SOUGHT OR RECEIVED BY IRAN ON SHIPS TRAVELING THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ´,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, without specifying whether those assurances would remain in place after the 60-day negotiating period.
Iran pushed back again on Wednesday after Trump said it had agreed to nuclear inspections into “infinity” as part of the initial accord.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi reiterated on X that no meeting was held in Switzerland with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi, despite Grossi’s request, and said there were currently no plans to grant access to nuclear facilities that had been attacked or to nuclear materials.
He said such issues would be considered only within the framework of a final agreement and after the US took practical steps to lift all sanctions on Iran.
On Wednesday, Trump told Nato chief Mark Rutte he was “let down” by members of the transatlantic alliance who did not back his war against Iran.
“We were let down. We didn´t need help on this at all. We demolished (Iran) literally in the first week but it would have been nice if they would have said, ´We´d like to help,´” Trump during a meeting with Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House.
Trump said that his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky —whom he previously said lacked the “cards” to win — is doing well in the war against invading Russian forces.
“He’s doing pretty well. He’s holding his own, at least. A lot of people dying on both sides, but I think he’s doing pretty well,” Trump added.
