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AFP, BURGENSTOCK, Switzerland; BEIRUT and DOHA
The US and Iran yesterday held talks in Switzerland after signing a preliminary agreement to end their war, with the conflict in Lebanon threatening to derail the deal.
The negotiations to end a war that sowed chaos across the Middle East and rattled the global economy are meant to trigger a 60-day period to settle broader issues that have dogged US-Iranian relations for decades, from Iran’s nuclear program to crippling sanctions.
US and Iranian representatives gathered alongside delegations from mediators Pakistan and Qatar at the luxury Swiss resort of Burgenstock, high above Lake Lucerne, with Doha confirming in the afternoon that the four-way talks had begun.
Photo: AFP
Yet the talks to end the months-long conflict are taking place against the backdrop of Iran closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz again in response to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, where its war with Hezbollah has flared despite a new ceasefire.
“It is not possible to enter the negotiation phase for a final agreement,” unless there was an end to the war in Lebanon, Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei wrote on X.
Washington and Tehran’s memorandum of understanding signed earlier this month extended the truce in the war that began in late February with US-Israeli strikes on Iran. It included a provision to end fighting in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah.
However, there have been repeated clashes in Lebanon since, which prompted Iran to say it would again shutter the crucial oil and gas trade route, having opened it as part of the deal.
Activists and campaign groups on Saturday paid tribute to Lebanese environmentalist Mona Khalil who died from injuries sustained in an Israeli strike in the country’s south, where she dedicated her life to turtle conservation for decades.
A medical source had previously said that Khalil, aged in her late seventies, was badly wounded in an Israeli strike on June 4 that hit her home in the village of Mansouri, about 10km south of the coastal city of Tyre. She died on Friday.
Separately, Qatar-based al-Jazeera yesterday said that an Israeli strike killed one of its journalists in the Gaza Strip, the latest of several people working for the broadcaster killed in the Palestinian territory since Oct. 7, 2023.
An Israeli military spokesman said the military “confirms it carried out a strike on Ahmed Wishah, who was a Hamas terrorist,” but did not provide any evidence to support the accusation.
“Ahmed Wishah, a cameraman for al-Jazeera, has been killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a house in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza,” al-Jazeera said on its Web site.
A correspondent for the channel said the strike was carried out by a drone in the refugee camp and also wounded several people.
The broadcaster said Wishah’s brother and fellow al-Jazeera journalist Mohammed had been killed in April “by Israeli shelling when he was traveling in his vehicle.”
When Mohammed Wishah was killed in April, Reporters Without Borders said Israeli forces had killed more than 220 journalists since the war in Gaza erupted. At least 70 of them were killed in the context of their professional duties.
