BREAKING: Trump announces a peace agreement that Iran denies | International
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End of the war in Iran? The president of the United States, Donald Trump, yesterday took another of his sudden lurches, and one of the most spectacular, in the war in Iran. Hours after announcing that his forces would launch a new round of attacks, the third in three consecutive nights, he proclaimed on social networks that he has canceled that decision because the two enemies have already approved a memorandum of understanding that only needs to put the finishing touches. He later pointed out that the pact could be signed even this weekend, perhaps in Europe, and the United States would be represented by its vice president, JD Vance. But Iran insists that although most of the document is now finalized, the United States “continues to change its positions.” It is not the first time that Trump triumphantly proclaims that there is already an agreement agreed and that only minutiae are missing. But what the American president considers minutiae has ended up resulting in the most serious obstacles in the negotiation, from the details of the Iranian nuclear program to the lifting of sanctions or the unfreezing of Iranian funds. The state or semi-official media in Tehran deny that everything is as closed as the American claims. The state agency Irna quotes the Foreign Ministry spokesperson to assure that “nothing has been finalized” and claims about an agreement are pure speculation. Despite the Iranian denial, the markets reacted with euphoria to Trump’s announcement. According to the US president’s version, “the negotiations with the Islamic Republic have been taken to the highest level of the Iranian leadership and have been approved.” As a result, “as president of the United States, I have canceled the planned attacks and bombings against Iran tonight,” the president wrote on his social network, Truth. Later, in an event in the Oval Office, he indicated that the Iranian supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has approved the memorandum of understanding: “I understand that the answer is yes,” he commented. Trump assures—as he has done on several occasions since the entry into force of the current truce on April 8, without his predictions coming to pass—that while both forces were exchanging fire, great progress has been made behind the scenes. “The discussions and final details have been, both in concept and in great detail, approved by all parties involved, including the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and others,” he wrote on networks. In the Oval Office, he has attributed these sudden progress to the pressure imposed by the two days in a row of bombing by his forces against targets in Iran. “They are as eager as anyone to reach an agreement,” commented the president, who sometimes expresses himself about his rivals in terms that could describe him. The Republican has not hidden his interest in being able to turn the page on a conflict in which thousands of people have died and which has been much more complicated than he anticipated. His announcement came a day after official figures revealed that inflation in the United States stood at 4.2%, the highest figure in three years, driven by drastic increases in energy prices. As a result of his statement, a barrel of oil fell to 90 dollars (about 78 euros), the lowest level since the beginning of the war. Wall Street soared this Thursday and the Nasdaq technology index advanced 2.01%. Ships in the Strait of Hormuz near the beaches of the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA (via REUTERS) Trump’s statement came after having toughened his threats against an Iran that he was trying to pressure with force to accept his conditions for a ceasefire. After two consecutive days of attacks in the south and west of the adversary country, to which Tehran has responded with missile launches against military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, this Thursday it had warned that the bombings would continue, and “very hard”, tonight. He had also assured that he is considering taking the island of Jarg, about 30 kilometers from the Iranian coast and its large oil center in the northern part of the Persian Gulf, and taking over Iran’s energy sector, as “we have done in Venezuela.” Asked if he maintains that threat, he responded that it will depend on what happens with the memorandum of understanding. Behind that aggressive rhetoric was a shift in the Trump Administration’s strategy, which maintained that the intention is not to resume the open war of the first two months of the conflict, but to accelerate the pressure on Iran to accept the conditions of the United States, sign a peace agreement and the American president can finally, as he ardently wishes, turn the page on a conflict that has become much more complicated than he imagined. The World Bank has already lowered its forecasts for global growth this year to the lowest rate since the pandemic, by 2.5%. Although one thing is what Trump wanted and another is reality. The president assures that the adversary country has been left without offensive capacity and that the latest American blows have finished destroying its defenses. But Iranian forces continue to fire, and the downing on Monday of an Apache military helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz area — which precipitated the new wave of clashes — made it clear that Tehran still maintains the capacity to strike. The theocratic regime considers itself strengthened by the mere fact of having survived the phase of open hostilities and the assassinations of many of its leaders, and has shown no signs of wanting to give in. Added to the enormous mistrust between the two parties are enormous differences in positions. Iran is demanding sanctions relief and the unfreezing of funds, which Trump maintains he is unwilling to grant. And Tehran does not want to give up key aspects of its nuclear program, the condition that the American insists is indispensable.Taking Jarg IslandTrump’s threats are also hampered by the difficulty of materializing them. The American president already flirted in the first months of the war with the possibility of taking the island of Jarg. US forces attacked targets there, although they avoided destroying the oil infrastructure. But the White House ended up rejecting the possibility of occupying it given the complexity and risk of the operation, and the risk of American public opinion against it. Invading Jarg would be relatively simple, but maintaining the American military presence there would be another matter. The troops remaining deployed there would be exposed to enemy fire from the mainland about thirty kilometers away from the coast. And as Trump acknowledges, voters are completely opposed to a military deployment on the ground that could cost American lives.
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Source: This article was originally published by Internacional en EL PAÍS and adapted for our international English-speaking audience.
Read the original article here.