US, Iran sign initial peace deal to end war, reopen Strait of Hormuz

The presidents of the US and Iran have signed an initial peace deal aiming to end the war, allowing it to immediately take effect.

The agreement includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a $300bn (£224bn) plan for Iran’s “reconstruction”, and the US terminating “all types of sanctions” on Iran.

The BBC reports that the issue of Iran’s nuclear programme, the main reason stated by the US for the conflict, was however still to be negotiated over an extendable 60-day period.

US President Donald Trump, who signed the deal in France during the G7 summit, defended the proposal, saying it would stave off an “economic catastrophe”. He warned, though, that the US would “bomb the hell” out of Iran if no final deal emerged.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also signed the document on Wednesday, Tehran confirmed.

Iran’s parliamentary speaker and key negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told state media his distrust of the US remained, and Iran’s “finger is on the trigger”.

“If the enemy does not understand the language of logic, we will enter again with the language of power,” he told state broadcaster Fars.

The US and Israel launched the war on Iran on 28 February, assassinating Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and top military officials on the first day.

But since that time the conflict has spiralled, driving up energy prices and renewing inflationary pressures as Iran imposed a de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key trade waterway through which around 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) usually passes.

Trump told reporters in France at the lakeside resort of Evian-les-Bains, where the G7 summit took place, that the plan would avert “worldwide depression”.

“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters. “If you kept this going, that could have happened.

“All I know is every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship,” he added.

“Every time we said something negative, like, guess what, we’re not going to be able to settle, it would go down very big.”