The United States and Iran on Wednesday released the text of an interim agreement signed by their presidents to end the war.
However, US President Donald Trump has threatened to resume attacks and kill Iranian officials if they do not live up to their commitments.
Trump, present at the G7 with other French leaders, also withdrew at least one of his stated reasons for attacking Iran in the first place, saying it would be “unfair” for Tehran not to have ballistic missiles, having previously promised to destroy them.
“We will bomb them to death if they violate the agreement,” Trump said of Iran in a news conference.
“I don’t want them to do that. I want them to honor the agreement.”
He also called Iranians “smart people” as U.S. and Iranian negotiators work on a permanent truce over the next 60 days, which Trump said he hoped would lead to Middle East peace and lower oil prices.
He previously said: “If I don’t like it, if they don’t behave, we’ll go back to dropping bombs right in the middle of their heads, okay?”
Iranian leaders did not address the new threats as they celebrated the moment, releasing photographs of what is believed to be the first agreement signed by both the US and Iranian presidents since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979.
“Everything we tried to achieve through military action, we achieved repeatedly through negotiations; it wasn’t even comparable,” Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Qalibaf, told state television of the deal, which includes the unfreezing of billions of dollars in Iranian assets.
The United States and Israel launched war against Iran on February 28, assassinating the 86-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and military leaders on the first day.
It quickly escalated into a regional conflict that killed more than 7,000 people, mostly in Iran and Lebanon; increase in energy prices; renewed inflationary pressures; and raised concerns about a serious food supply crisis in developing countries.
The 14-point agreement extends the ceasefire announced in April by another 60 days, including in Lebanon, to allow the two sides to negotiate a definitive truce.
Both Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian digitally signed the memorandum in English and Farsi, U.S. and Iranian officials said, while Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the agreement was already in place as of Wednesday.
Trump signed shortly before a large dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles, the site where the eponymous treaty that formally ended the First World War was signed.
The memorandum calls for an immediate end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, the full resumption of maritime traffic “at no cost” in the Strait of Hormuz, the lifting of the US blockade of Iranian ports, the waiving of US sanctions on Iran, the unfreezing of its assets, and a $300 billion fund for the post-war reconstruction of the Islamic Republic.
Oil prices fell again on Wednesday ahead of the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow and vital waterway between Iran and Oman, with Brent crude futures below $80, the lowest level since the war began.
They later regained more than 1% after Trump threatened more violence.
Iran also pledges not to build nuclear weapons, reiterating a promise it has made for decades.
It also agreed to on-site “down-blending” of its stockpile of enriched uranium under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
However, Trump wanted to take him out of the country, which Iran refused.
Even with his combative rhetoric, Trump appears to have achieved little of what he said he wanted by going to war, while Iran appears much closer to having billions of dollars in sanctions relief than before it was attacked.
Iran’s theocratic government remains in place, its stockpile of highly enriched uranium has not been surrendered, its ballistic missile capabilities have not been destroyed, and it has not stopped supporting anti-Israel militias such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Trump walked back his February promise to destroy all of Iran’s missiles and “raze their missile industry to the ground.”
“I’m saying if other countries have them, it’s a little unfair for them not to have them,” Trump told reporters in Paris after leaving the summit.
G7 leaders hailed the deal at their summit, held in the French city of Evian-les-Bains, an hour’s drive along the shore of Lake Geneva, from where the United States announced that a formal signing ceremony of the U.S.-Iran deal would be held across the Swiss border on Friday.
But Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei expressed doubts about this, telling IRIB’s News Network that because the two presidents had already signed, “no signing ceremony will be held in Switzerland.”
European leaders share U.S. concerns about Iran’s nuclear program but have never endorsed its decision to go to war without U.N. authorization, and fear that Iran has gained influence by resisting the superpower’s onslaught and asserting control over the straits.
The leaders of France, Germany, Britain, Japan, Italy, Canada and the United States called in a joint statement for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, where the memorandum calls for an end to hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group that has killed thousands of people and displaced more than a million.
Fighting there has eased but not ceased since the deal was reached on Sunday, and Israel, which was not part of the negotiations and whose army is occupying southern Lebanon, says it retains the right to use force.
On Wednesday, Trump gently rebuked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has distanced Israel from the US-Iran deal, for his tactics in Lebanon against Hezbollah.
The two men have repeatedly clashed over Israel’s refusal to limit its pursuit of Hezbollah in Lebanon, where a cessation of hostilities is one of Iran’s key demands.
“Netanyahu seems to be a good man, he gets a little emotional sometimes,” Trump told reporters.
“We have a little dispute about Lebanon. I say you can have a softer touch, Bibi,” he said, using Netanyahu’s nickname.
“There is no need to tear down a building every time someone from Hezbollah enters it.”
Lebanese state media reported fresh Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire in several southern cities throughout Wednesday.
Lebanese security sources said Hezbollah also launched two drone attacks against Israeli forces in the south.
The group has not publicly claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Israel later said that five of its soldiers had been wounded in two Hezbollah drone strikes in southern Lebanon.
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