Both sides claim victory after US, Iran agree to 11th-hour truce

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WASHINGTON – The United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire barely an hour before President Donald Trump’s April 8 deadline to obliterate Iran was set to expire, with Tehran agreeing to temporarily reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz.

Both sides claimed to have won the more than month-long conflict that has roiled global financial markets and sent oil prices skyrocketing, with Mr Trump telling Agence France-Presse the deal was a “total and complete victory” for the US.

Iran too cast the ceasefire as a win, saying it agreed to talks with Washington to begin on April 10 in Pakistan on a path to end the conflict.

“The enemy has suffered an undeniable, historic and crushing defeat in its cowardly, illegal and criminal war against the Iranian nation,” said a statement from the Iranian Supreme National Security Council.

“Iran achieved a great victory,” it declared.

The White House said Israel also agreed to the ceasefire.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, however, the truce does not include Lebanon, where Israeli assaults in response to rocket fire by Iranian-backed Hezbollah have led to more than 1,500 deaths, according to Lebanese authorities.

Israel encouraged Mr Trump to join the war against Iran, its arch-nemesis, and in the first strikes killed the long-serving supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Mr Trump said he spoke to Pakistan’s leaders who “requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran”.

He later said he believed China helped get Tehran to negotiate.

“Subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks,” Mr Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Mr Trump had set a deadline to Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz by 8pm Washington time (8am on April 8, Singapore time).

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed safe passage for two weeks for ships through the Strait of Hormuz, the gateway for a fifth of the world’s oil that Tehran sealed off in retaliation for the war launched on Feb 28.

“If attacks against Iran are halted, our Powerful Armed Forces will cease their defensive operations,” Mr Araghchi said.

Uranium to be ‘taken care of’

Oil prices plunged by more than 17 per cent after the ceasefire announcement. Costs at the pump have risen sharply since the war across the globe and for ordinary Americans, putting heavy political pressure on Mr Trump.

Stock prices also soared in early trade in Asia on April 8.

Mr Trump said the US was “very far along” in negotiating a long-term agreement with Iran, which submitted a 10-point plan that he said was “workable”.

But Iran publicly released points that took maximalist positions, including lifting longstanding US sanctions, guaranteeing its own “dominion” over the Strait of Hormuz and removing US forces from the region.

Crucially, it also said its plan would require Washington to accept its uranium enrichment programme.

Mr Trump has alleged that Iran was near building an atomic bomb, an assertion not backed by the UN nuclear watchdog and most observers.

Mr Trump insisted that the nuclear material would be covered by any peace deal.

“That will be perfectly taken care of, or I wouldn’t have settled,” Mr Trump said, without giving any specifics about what would happen to the uranium.

Mr Trump would not say whether he would go back to his original threats to lay waste to all power plants and bridges across the country of 90 million people if the deal fell apart.

“You’re going to have to see,” he said.

Mr Trump had made threats shocking even by his own standards when he warned that “a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will”.

Heavy strikes before deadline

The US and Israel struck key infrastructure before Mr Trump’s deadline, with Mr Netanyahu saying attacks hit railways and bridges allegedly used by the Revolutionary Guards.

The Israeli military also offered a rare statement of regret after it acknowledged damaging a synagogue in Tehran, saying it was targeting a senior Iranian commander.

Iran, run by Shi’ite Muslim clerics, is home to around 100 synagogues for its historic Jewish minority.

Infrastructure attacks reported by the Iranian authorities on April 7 included a US-Israeli strike on a bridge outside the city of Qom and another on a rail bridge in central Iran that killed two people.

Iran has retaliated with weeks of drone and missile attacks on Gulf Arab states, citing their role as hubs for American troops.

The attacks have shattered the monarchies’ hard-fought reputation for safety and stability.

Qatar said early on April 8 that four people were hurt by falling missile debris, including a child. Reporters also heard explosions in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates said they responded to missile threats.

Two civilians, one of them an eight-year-old child, were killed in Baghdad when a projectile crashed into their home, police said.

‘Terrified’

Iranian university student Metanat, 27, whose classmate was killed two weeks ago in an attack, said before Mr Trump’s suspension of the bombing she felt “terrified and so should everyone else in the country”.

State media published photos purporting to show groups of Iranians forming human chains to protect power plants.

The show of patriotism in the face of attacks came several months after Iran’s cleric-run government cracked down violently on mass protests, with rights groups reporting thousands of deaths.

A peace agreement would leave in place the Islamic republic despite hopes by Israel and the United States of toppling it.

The United States and Israel said that they attacked Iran to degrade its military capacity. AFP