Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Iran fired on targets across the Middle East on Friday, damaging a desalination plant and setting fire to a refinery in Kuwait, while US and Israeli airstrikes hit the Islamic republic. war Nearing the end of its fifth week.
Despite US and Israeli insistence, Tehran has maintained pressure on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbors Iran’s military capabilities Everyone has been destroyed. Signaling that a segment of Iran’s theocracy may be willing to negotiate, the country’s former top diplomat published a proposal to end the conflict in an influential US magazine.
Gulf energy infrastructure and Iran’s attacks on it A tight grip on the Strait of HormuzThe crisis, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas transits in peacetime, has roiled stock markets, sent oil prices skyrocketing, and threatened to send the cost of many basic commodities, including food, soaring.
Iran’s potential wreak havoc This has proven to be a huge strategic advantage to the global economy, and world leaders have struggled to figure out how to reopen the waterway. The UN Security Council was expected to consider a new resolution.
Former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif – a diplomat with long experience in negotiating with the West who is close to the pragmatic wing of Iran’s leadership – wrote on Friday that it was time to end the suffering.
“Prolonged hostilities will lead to greater loss of precious lives and irreplaceable resources without changing the current stalemate,” Zarif, who helped negotiate Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine.
The US has presented Iran with a 15-point plan for a ceasefire that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz, dismantling Iran’s nuclear facilities and limiting its missile production in exchange for sanctions relief. But there were no clear signs of progress in the diplomatic effort.
Iran’s initial five-point counterproposal, broadcast by hardline state television, included recognizing Iran’s sovereignty over the strait, removing US bases from the region, compensation for war damage and guarantees against further aggression – all of which were likely unpalatable to the Trump administration.
Zarif’s proposal included elements of both plans.
“Iran should offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for limits on its nuclear program and the end of all sanctions – an agreement Washington would not accept before but may now accept,” he wrote.
Tehran and Washington were negotiating about Iran’s nuclear program when the US and Israel began the bombing on February 28 – the second time under President Donald Trump the US has struck during talks.
It is not clear how much should be read into Zarif’s proposal. Although he holds no official position in Iran’s government, he helped get reformist President Massoud Pezeshkian elected and would likely not have published such an article without at least some authorization from senior leaders.
But it is also clear who has the right to negotiate in Iran because many leaders have been killed in the war. Soon after the piece came out, Zarif wrote that he was “torn apart” about it – a sign that he may already be facing pressure at home.
What’s more, it’s unclear how Trump will respond. He has oscillated between saying the US is negotiating an end to the war and threatening to extend it. Thousands of US Marines and paratroopers have been ordered to the area, leading to speculation that a ground attack could take place there.
Kuwait’s Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery was hit by the Iranian attack, and state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said firefighters were working to control several blazes.
Kuwait also said the Iranian attack caused “physical damage” to the desalination plant. Such plants are responsible for most of the Gulf countries’ drinking water, and they have become a prime target in war.
Sirens were also sounded in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia said it had destroyed several Iranian drones, and Israel reported incoming missiles.
Authorities in the United Arab Emirates have closed a gas field after a missile interception reportedly caused debris to fall on it and cause a fire.
Activists reported attacks around Tehran and the central city of Isfahan, but it was not immediately clear what led to the attack. A day earlier, Iran had said the US attacked a major bridge, which was still under construction. murder of eight people.
More than 1,900 people have died in Iran during the war. In a review released on Friday, the US-based group Armed Conflict Location and Event Data said they found that civilian casualties were caused by attacks on security and state-linked sites “rather than by indiscriminate bombardment” of urban areas.
More than two dozen people have died in the Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, while 13 U.S. service member Have been killed, while 19 people are reported dead in Israel.
more than 1,300 people have been killed And more than 1 million people have been displaced in Lebanon, where Israel has launched a ground offensive in its fight with the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militant group. Ten Israeli soldiers have also been killed.
spot prices of brent crudeThe international benchmark was around $109 on Friday, up more than 50% since the start of the war, when Iran began restricting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
United Nations Security Council was Voting is expected on Saturday On a proposal by Bahrain that would authorize defensive action to ensure that ships can safely transit the waterway. Bahrain’s initial draft would have allowed countries to “use all necessary means” to secure the strait, but Russia, China and France – which have veto power in the council – expressed opposition to approving the use of force.
After the meeting in Seoul between South Korean President Lee Jae-Myung and French President Emmanuel MacronThe two leaders said they pledged to “cooperate to ensure safe passage” through the strait, but did not provide specifics.
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Growing news from Bangkok. AP journalists Sylvie Courbet in Paris, Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, Tong-Hyung Kim in Seoul, South Korea and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
