Iran and US reach outline ceasefire deal after latest attacks: Report

DUBAI/WASHINGTON – The United States and Iran have reached an outline agreement to extend their ceasefire pending the approval of US President Donald Trump, according to an Axios report, after Iran targeted a US airbase in Kuwait on May 28 in the wake of US strikes on what Washington described as an Iranian drone operation.

According to the report by Axios, the two sides agreed on a 60-day memorandum of understanding to extend the truce and launch negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme, but the plan still needed Mr Trump’s sign-off.

Oil prices reversed course to trade lower after the report.

The latest attacks, while limited, highlighted the fragility of negotiations to turn the tenuous early-April ceasefire into a lasting agreement to end the three-month-old war that has killed thousands, and reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping route.

US Central Command said US forces had shot down five Iranian attack drones and struck a ground control station in the port city of Bandar Abbas that was about to launch a sixth drone. Kuwaiti forces had then intercepted a ballistic missile fired towards the country, which hosts a large US base.

“These actions were measured, purely defensive and intended to maintain the ceasefire,” a US official, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about military operations, told Reuters earlier.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said later that it had targeted the US base responsible for an early-morning attack near Bandar Abbas airport and that any repeat would lead to a “more decisive response”, Tasnim news agency reported.

Kuwait condemned the attack and demanded that Iran immediately halt what it called a serious escalation.

The violence, the second flare-up this week, coincided with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha celebrated across the region, where multiple countries have been caught up in the conflict triggered by US and Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb 28.

Mediator Pakistan said its Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar would meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington on May 29, although the significance of his visit was unclear.

In Lebanon, which Iran says must be part of any overall agreement to end hostilities, Israel said it had begun striking infrastructure of Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Tyre and had carried out a strike in the capital, Beirut.

The Lebanese army said a strike had killed one of its soldiers, while Israel, which has pushed deep into Lebanon in pursuit of Hezbollah, said air raid sirens had gone off in Israel’s north.

Trump: No country will control strait

Mr Trump has repeatedly said the end of the war is close.

It was earlier reported that he told media at a Cabinet meeting on May 27 that he was not yet satisfied by the negotiations and that the US was not discussing easing sanctions, one of Tehran’s demands.

He dismissed an Iranian state TV report about an unofficial draft of an agreement to restore commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to pre-war levels within a month, with Iran and Gulf state Oman jointly managing traffic.

Mr Trump said no single country would have control over the waterway, and appeared to threaten Oman, a country with which the US has decades-long military and economic ties.

“Nobody’s going to control (the strait),” Mr Trump said. “It’s international waters, and Oman will behave just like everybody else or we’ll have to blow them up. They understand that, they’ll be fine.”

Oman has not said anything about the idea of joint control of the strait with Iran, with which it says it has discussed freedom of navigation.

Tehran expressed solidarity with Oman after what it called “US officials’ threats”.

Iran’s IRGC reasserted their control of the strait, saying it had stopped two vessels and let 26 through in the past 24 hours. More than 100 ships would pass daily on average before the war.

Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in a letter to Parliament that Iran had emerged strengthened by the war and urged legislators to preserve national unity, repair damage and address hardship, inflation and corruption, state media said.

Iran was insisting on the US releasing Iranian funds, National Security Council Deputy Secretary Ali Bagheri Kani said, according to a Tasnim report.

Iran is also seeking an end to a US blockade on its ports and the lifting of sanctions, which the US Treasury Department said on May 27 it had extended by adding Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority, set up to manage passage through the strait.

Foreign vessels passed freely through the waterway before the war under international legal guarantees.

Iranian state TV said the draft deal would also have the US withdraw military forces from the immediate vicinity, though it said the issue of US troops in the region needed further discussion. The White House said the report was a “complete fabrication”. Tehran did not comment.

Iranian sources have said the nuclear issue will be discussed in further talks over 60 days – something that may not be acceptable to some of Mr Trump’s closest supporters, who want its nuclear programme disbanded. Iran says the programme is for peaceful purposes only.

“The bottom line is Iran’s never going to have a nuclear weapon,” Mr Rubio said. REUTERS