US and Iran exchange fire as negotiations stall

STICKING POINTS

Iran was already in talks with the United States about the fate of its nuclear programme in February, when the US and Israel launched air and missile strikes that wiped out much of the Islamic Republic’s senior leadership and plunged the Middle East into war.

While Tehran has long insisted that its nuclear programme is for purely civilian ends, the United States and its Western allies suspect it aims to develop an atomic weapon.

Late Sunday, Trump posted on social media that the deal under discussion “states, very clearly, that Iran will not have a Nuclear Weapon”.

Iran has said it needs the release of US$12 billion in frozen assets before engaging in substantive talks on its nuclear programme, and dismissed earlier Trump comments suggesting that its stockpile of enriched uranium would be destroyed.

LEBANON FRONT

A truce in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah formally began on Apr 17 but it has never been observed, with both sides accusing each other of violating it.

Israel has pursued a ground offensive into southern Lebanon, raising its flag over a medieval castle that served as a base during its two-decade occupation of the country in the 1980s and 1990s.

Netanyahu called the retaking of the Beaufort stronghold “a dramatic shift” and vowed to continue the fight against Hezbollah, with strikes and incursions ever deeper into Lebanon.

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Monday on the widening Israeli offensive, diplomatic sources told AFP.