Day of diplomatic hyperactivity to save the ceasefire in Iran

BarcelonaThe "memorandum of understanding" that prolongs the ceasefire between Iran and the United States and that is intended to allow progress towards a peace agreement is so fragile that all parties involved have intensified diplomatic moves to try to consolidate the foundations and prevent everything from blowing up a few days after its announcement. This Tuesday there are several parallel meetings in different parts of the world, all with the same objective on the table: to guarantee the mechanisms to try to maintain peace in the region. Iran's chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and the Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, are in Oman, meeting with Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said. The President of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, has traveled to Pakistan, a mediating country in the negotiations, and the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has scheduled meetings with leaders from Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. In addition, in Washington today, talks between Israel and Lebanon resume, as always, without the presence of Hezbollah.

assured that Iranian negotiators had agreed to allow inspections againIran and Oman share sovereignty of the maritime passage, and for this reason, this is the main issue in Monday's meeting in Muscat. The Omani Sultan has insisted that "free transit" must be guaranteed through the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic maritime route for global hydrocarbon trade.

The other major issue in question is Iran's nuclear program. This Monday, US Vice President J.D. Vance, stated that Iranian negotiators had agreed to allow inspections again by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which had been halted since the US and Israeli attacks in June last year on the country's nuclear facilities. The next day, Bahreini said that "there have been no serious negotiations regarding this matter, so any information that has been given about allowing inspectors to go to Iran is incorrect." Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei insisted, stating that Iran has not met with IAEA Director Rafael Grossi in Switzerland, nor does it plan for the UN nuclear watchdog to inspect the damaged nuclear facilities.

US President Donald Trump was quick to react, as usual, via Truth Social, insisting that "despite their protests and false statements (...) Iran has fully and completely accepted the highest level nuclear inspections." He also referred to the other issue of contention and contradictory messages: the fate of Iranian funds that will be unfrozen. Trump stated that the money and/or sanctions that the US Treasury is releasing "are going into an escrow account, controlled by the US, and will be used for the purchase of food and medical supplies, exclusively from the United States," including corn, wheat, and soybeans from American farmers.

Iran, however, asserts that it will be the country that decides on the use of the unfrozen foreign assets: "There will be no entity or any other party that will have a say in how they are used," Bahreini said. He also specified that it has been agreed to release 12 billion dollars in two tranches of 6 billion, the first of which "is either done or in the process of being completed."

The most obvious risk: Israel

In this delicate context, the element that could derail the process is Israel. The Iranian ambassador to the UN has stressed that the "red line" for Tehran is Israeli attacks on Lebanon. This Monday, the United Nations celebrated that it had been the first day without exchanges of projectiles between Israel and Hezbollah since March 2, when the war returned to Lebanon. The next day, however, deaths have been reported again. According to Lebanese official sources, at least two people have died in the south of the country when Israeli soldiers opened fire on a group of people on a road in the town of Nabatieh al-Fawqa.

The Israeli armed forces stated in a statement that the soldiers, who were operating in the security zone established by Tel Aviv in southern Lebanon, responded to an "immediate threat" from "armed terrorists".