In brief
- The US has backed out of a promised wave of devastating strikes on Iran following a flare up in the Middle Eastern conflict.
- Donald Trump has said a peace deal with Iran will be announced shortly.
Donald Trump called off new US military strikes on Iran on Thursday, saying the "final points" of an initial peace deal had been approved and that details of a signing ceremony would be announced shortly.
Iran did not immediately respond to Trump's announcement, which came hours after the president said the US military would attack Iran for a third consecutive night.
Since mid-March, Trump has repeatedly claimed that a deal with Iran to end the war is close.
Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported that Iran had not approved the text of any agreement.
Still, Iranian and Western sources told the Reuters news agency on Friday that efforts to reach an interim deal to end hostilities have intensified. A fragile ceasefire has been in place since early April.
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Three Iranian sources said a political understanding had been reached, but some issues remained to be discussed in detail, including a mechanism for the release of tens of billions of dollars of Iranian oil revenues frozen in foreign banks.
The deal would temporarily ease Iran's grip on the Strait of Hormuz and end a US blockade on Iranian ports, the sources said. Unresolved questions over Iran's nuclear development program and its stockpile of highly enriched uranium would be left for future talks.
It was unclear whether such a deal would satisfy critics within Trump's Republican Party who say that any agreement must close Iran's path to developing a nuclear weapon.
Analysts have said Trump is concerned that any deal will be compared with a 2015 agreement that he criticised as overly lenient. Trump pulled the US out of that accord in 2018 during his first term in office.
"Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved," Trump said on social media.
"The Naval Blockade will remain in full force and effect until this Transaction is finalized — Time and place of the signing to be announced shortly," he added. Since mid-April, the US has been blocking ships entering or leaving Iranian ports.
Trump said the agreement had been approved by "the highest level" of Iranian leadership, as well as other countries in the region including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
US stocks rose and oil prices fell on the news.
The war has killed thousands of people, mainly in Iran and Lebanon, and pushed up global oil prices since the US and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran on February 28.
Hardliners at home
Just over an hour before Trump's post, Iran's chief negotiator in the talks, parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, issued a stark warning.
"Wrong strategies and impulsive decisions will reset the entire board for the worse, explode energy infrastructure and markets and create an endless quagmire that you will be stuck in for years," he said.
General Ali Abdollahi, head of the Iranian military's central headquarters, warned that if the United States attacked, "it will receive a harsher response than before, and the flames of war, in addition to creating insecurity in the region, will become more widespread and far-reaching".
Mediators Pakistan and Qatar had suggested back-channel efforts to negotiate an end to the war were ongoing in spite of the flare-up, though Islamabad cautioned it was "hard to be an optimist" in light of the escalation.
China, the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, had called for more negotiations, with a foreign ministry spokesperson urging the warring parties "to immediately cease military operations... (and) respond to the mediation efforts".
Civilians living under threat of a renewed strike in Tehran were pessimistic. Majid, a 35-year-old pharmacist, told the Agence France-Presse news agency that the economic knock-on effects of the fighting were crippling normal life.
"I am absolutely not optimistic about the agreement being finalised, because the gap between the two countries is too wide," he said, blaming the lack of progress on Israel —which also traded fire with Iran in recent days — as well as hardliners at home.
Iran has renewed its warnings over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for oil and gas transport that it has essentially closed since early in the war, roiling global energy markets. Iran's new body overseeing the strait said it "will be closed until further notice".
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