Negotiators from Iran and the U.S. prepared for high-level talks with their ceasefire still shaky Friday, as Israel and Hezbollah traded fire and Tehran maintained its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
There remain many issues that could derail the truce — as well as negotiations for a broader deal to permanently end the war.
Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency, close to the Revolutionary Guard, claimed that talks set for Saturday wouldn’t happen unless Israel stopped its attacks in Lebanon. And U.S. President Donald Trump complained that Iran was “doing a very poor job” by not allowing the free flow of ships through the strait, through which 20% of the world’s traded oil once passed.
Kuwait, meanwhile, said it faced a drone attack Thursday night that it blamed on Iran and its militia allies in the region. Though Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard denied launching any assault, it has carried out attacks across the Mideast in the past that it did not claim.
And yet, preparations for the talks between Iran and the U.S. appeared to be moving forward, with U.S. Vice President JD Vance making his way to Pakistan from Washington. Negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, meanwhile, are expected to begin next week in Washington, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the delicacy of the matter.
Before his departure, Vance said he believes negotiation with Iran will be “positive.”
But he added, “If they’re gonna try and play us, then they’re gonna find that the negotiating team is not that receptive.”
Israel and Lebanon will have direct negotiations
Israel’s insistence that the ceasefire in Iran does not include a pause in its fighting with Hezbollah, which joined the war in support of its backer, Iran, has threatened to scupper the deal.
The day the truce was announced, Israel pounded Beirut with airstrikes, killing more than 300 people, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. It was the deadliest day in the country since the war began Feb. 28.
Trump said Thursday that he has asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to dial back the strikes. Early Friday, Israel’s military said it hit approximately 10 launchers in Lebanon that had fired rockets toward northern Israel a day earlier.
Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, warned Thursday that continued Israeli attacks on Hezbollah would bring “explicit costs and STRONG responses.”
Netanyahu, meanwhile, said that he authorized the negotiations with Lebanon “as soon as possible” with the aim of disarming Hezbollah militants and establishing relations between the neighbors, which have technically been at war since Israel was established in 1948.
The Lebanese government had not responded as of early afternoon Friday. The timing and location of the talks were first reported by Axios.
In a first statement since Israel announced direct negotiations with Lebanon, Hezbollah chief Naim Kassem urged Lebanese officials to stop offering “free concessions” but did not take a clear stance on the talks.
Two days after Israel’s intense barrage, people sifted through the wreckage of their homes, trying to salvage whatever furniture and personal mementos they could find. Some expressed gratitude that they did not lose their loved ones.
“There is no substitute for family,” said Wissam Tabila, 35. “Everything else can be replaced.”
The Strait of Hormuz remains a sticking point
Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent oil prices skyrocketing, driven stocks down and roiled the world economy. Tehran’s control over the waterway has proved its biggest strategic advantage in the war.
The spot price of Brent crude, the international standard, was around $97 Friday, up more than 30% since the war started.
Before the conflict, over 100 ships passed through the strait each day — many carrying oil to Asia. With the ceasefire in place, only 12 have been recorded passing through.
Underscoring the precarious situation, a Botswana-flagged liquefied natural gas tanker attempted to travel out of the Persian Gulf via a route ordered by the Revolutionary Guard, but suddenly turned around early Friday, ship-tracking data showed.
The head of the United Arab Emirates’ major oil company, Sultan al-Jaber, said some 230 ships loaded with oil were waiting to get through the strait and must be allowed “to navigate this corridor without condition.”
Trump complained about that situation, writing on his social media platform: “Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz.”
“That is not the agreement we have!” Trump wrote of the trickle of ships Iran has allowed to pass.
The ceasefire deal is still fragile
Questions also remain over the fate of Iran’s missile and nuclear programs — which the U.S. and Israel sought to eliminate in going to war.
The U.S. insists Iran must never be able to build nuclear weapons and wants to remove Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which could be used to make them. Iran insists its program is peaceful.
Trump has said that the U.S. would work with Iran to remove the uranium, though Tehran has not confirmed that.
The chief of Iran’s nuclear agency, Mohammad Eslami, said Thursday that protecting Tehran’s right to enrich uranium is “necessary” for any ceasefire talks.
More than 3,000 people have been killed in Iran, a top Iranian officer told the state-run Iran newspaper. Iran’s government has not provided any definitive death toll from the weekslong war.
In Lebanon, more than 1,888 people have been killed and 1 million have been displaced. Over a dozen people have died in Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, while 23 civilians were killed in Israel. Thirteen U.S. service members have been killed.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian forces shot down Iranian‑designed Shahed drones in several Middle Eastern countries during the Iran war. The missions, carried out with domestically produced interceptor drones, were part of efforts to help partners counter the same weapons Russia uses in Ukraine, he said.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)
