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Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the Pasdaran, claim that 25 ships have crossed the Strait of Hormuz in the last 24 hours
Trump, he is negotiating to the point of exhaustion. Tehran unveils draft agreement, White House denies
Iran is “negotiating to the bitter end and wants an agreement. We are not satisfied, but we will be. We may have to go back there and finish the job.” Donald Trump is back to threatening Tehran and dictating conditions for the deal that could end the war. The tycoon made it clear that Iran will not get an easing of sanctions in return for giving up highly enriched uranium. “We’re not talking about sanctions relief or money,” he said during the White House cabinet meeting. The deal, he added, “will have to be perfect. I didn’t go through all this to get a bad one’. One of the consequences of the deal negotiated in these hours, the president pointed out, is that ‘the Strait of Hormuz will reopen immediately’. And ‘it will be open to everybody, it’s international waters, nobody will control it’. Trump then issued a warning to Arab countries: if they don’t adhere to the Abrahamic Accords, ‘I’m not sure we should make the deal’ with the Islamic Republic. “I think they owe it to us. I will not say what is subordinate and what is not,” but “we are asking for it strongly,” he continued. Asked about the possibility of Tehran’s enriched uranium ending up under the control of Russia or China, Trump replied, “I wouldn’t feel comfortable with that.” Reiterating that Iran “will never have a nuclear weapon,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio stressed that “diplomacy is always the first option and we continue to work on that,” adding that the United States has “other options” in the event of no agreement.
Israel, south of the Zahrani River is a combat zone
The Israeli army issued an evacuation notice urging residents of southern Lebanon to move north of the Zahrani River, saying it would act “with great force” against Hezbollah for what it called repeated ceasefire violations. The army, in a post on X, urged civilians to keep away from Hezbollah operatives, facilities and weapons storage sites, adding that all areas south of the Zahrani River should be considered a “combat zone”.
Phone call between President and Prime Minister Pakistan, Sharif hopes ‘agreement soon’
According to sources on al-Arabiya satellite TV, during the phone call Pezeshkian reportedly updated Sharif on recent talks involving Iranian officials in Qatar. Two days ago, Iranian media reported on a mission to Doha by the head of Tehran’s parliament and Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Tehran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and the governor of Iran’s Central Bank, Abdolnaser Hemmati. Islamabad has been a key player in the difficult mediation between Iran and the United States for weeks. A friend of both Beijing and Tehran, Pakistan managed in April to get the Iranians and Americans to sit around the same table after weeks of American and Israeli operations that hammered the Islamic Republic and to which Tehran did not fail to respond with targets in the Gulf countries in its sights. After the fragile truce, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio today confirmed ‘some progress’ in negotiations with Iran. Trump, on the other hand, repeated that Iran ‘is very keen to make a deal’, but – he added – ‘we are not yet satisfied’.
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