United States President Donald Trump has said a deal to end the war between Iran and a US-Israeli coalition could be sealed within days, reopening the Strait of Hormuz that Tehran shut in February.
Speaking after attending basketball’s NBA finals in New York on June 8, Trump said negotiators were in the closing stages of an accord that, he insisted, “will not in any way allow nuclear weapons” — an ambition Iran says it has never held.
He claimed the pact could be concluded in two or three days and that the strait would reopen the moment it was signed.
The optimism jarred with events on the ground.
Iran and Israel had traded missile fire on June 7 for the first time since a fragile ceasefire took hold in early April, reviving fears of a wider war.
The flare-up followed an Israeli airstrike that day on the southern suburbs of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, carried out without warning and despite a US request to hold back.
The strike on a residential building killed two people and wounded 20, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, prompting Tehran to fire missiles at northern Israel in response.
Both sides halted their attacks on June 8. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war against Iran and Hezbollah had not yet ended, while Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian insisted Tehran had not walked away from the talks.
The conflict erupted on February 28, when the US and Israel launched airstrikes against Iran. Iran retaliated by closing the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for much of the world’s seaborne oil, before a Pakistan-brokered truce paused the fighting.
According to officials briefed on the negotiations, the draft deal centres on a 60-day extension of the ceasefire, during which the strait would reopen, Iran would be free to sell its oil and the two sides would tackle limits on its nuclear programme.
Trump said a separate US naval blockade of Iranian ports would remain in place until a final agreement was reached.
The standoff has rattled energy markets across the European Union, where the closure has driven up fuel prices and stoked inflation. Brent crude, the European benchmark, has swung sharply, trading around $93 a barrel (€80) as tensions cooled.
The European Central Bank is widely expected to raise interest rates on June 11, with policymakers wary of the inflationary jolt from the disruption to Gulf supplies.
Britain and France have meanwhile hosted talks on securing safe passage through the strait, while European governments have pressed for Lebanon to be folded into any ceasefire.
