Lebanon and Israel were holding their first direct talks in decades as fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants rocked southern Lebanon. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors for the discussion on Tuesday, April 14, in Washington, even as Hezbollah said it will not abide by any agreement, a high-ranking member of the group’s political council told the Associated Press.
In a statement to reporters after the historic talks, Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter praised his Lebanese counterparts for their cooperation in the meeting in Washington despite pressure from Hezbollah not to.
“We discovered today that we’re on the same side of the equation. That’s the most positive thing we could have come away with,” Leiter said. “We are both united in liberating Lebanon from an occupation power dominated by Iran called Hezbollah.”
Israel and the Western-backed Lebanese army have both been unable to forcibly disarm Hezbollah. The talks between envoys from longtime adversaries began at 11 am EDT and lasted for two hours.
Second round of talks with Iran could be in Pak ‘over the next two days’
President Donald Trump has said that a second round of talks with Iran could be held in Islamabad “over the next two days”, according to a US media report on Tuesday.
“You should stay there, really, because something could be happening over the next two days, and we’re more inclined to go there,” Trump told The New York Post.
Trump attributed the possibility of a second round of talks to the “great job” done by Pakistan Army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir. “It’s more likely, you know why? Because the field marshal is doing a great job,” the US President said.
Fox News reported that the US decision on the blockade of Iranian ports was one of the reasons for Tehran returning to the negotiating table.
“A lot is happening today and tomorrow. We have all the ingredients of a deal, but it’s not all there yet,” an unnamed US official told Fox News.
UN chief says it is ‘highly probable’ that US-Iran talks will restart
Guterres said this was the indication he had after a meeting Tuesday with Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, who is also the country’s Foreign Minister.
The UN secretary-general expressed “enormous admiration” for Pakistan’s initiative to bring peace to the Middle East.
“I consider it essential that these negotiations go on,” Guterres told UN reporters, explaining that it would be “unrealistic” for long-lasting and complex problems between the US and Iran to be resolved in a first negotiating session.
“We need negotiations to go on, and we need a ceasefire to persist as negotiations go on,” he said.
US military claims blockade success
The US military claims that it has successfully begun to enforce a blockade of Iranian ports, though at least one ship with apparent ties to Tehran has transited the Strait of Hormuz.
US Central Command, which oversees West Asia, said that “during the first 24 hours, no ships made it past the US blockade and 6 merchant vessels complied with direction from US forces to turn around to re-enter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman.”
While some tankers approaching the strait on Monday did turn around shortly after the blockade took effect, the tanker Rich Starry reversed course again and transited the waterway early Tuesday.
Iran’s envoy to Pakistan terms US blockade of Strait of Hormuz ‘reckless misstep’
Iran’s envoy to Pakistan on Tuesday termed the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz a “reckless misstep meant possibly for a dignified exit and face-saving”.
“A vicious circle of redundant words to reckless act and back again!” Ambassador Reza Amiri Moghadam said in a post on X.
He said the “unlawful, provocative & non-constructive act of establishing a naval blockade is a reckless misstep meant possibly for a dignified exit and face-saving.”
Moghadam said that imposing a naval blockade aims to create the idea that “things are imposed by force and thereby justifying deployment of ammunition, rhetoric, loss of lives and costs on American taxpayers”.
“Still, the miscalculation adds up to the inventory of faults with dire consequences for the whole region and beyond,” he added.
399 US troops have been wounded in the Iran war
The formal injury count, provided by Captain Tim Hawkins, spokesman for US Central Command, says three service members have been seriously wounded.
Central Command said two weeks ago in a previous update that 348 troops were wounded, six of them seriously. However, the military command does not provide any further details about the wounded, so it’s unclear whether anyone’s status improves or worsens.
Hawkins says of the total wounded to date, 354 service members have returned to duty.
Since the Iran war began, 13 US service members have been killed in combat.
Italy suspends military partnership with Israel
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said Tuesday that her government has suspended the automatic renewal of a defence agreement with Israel, citing “the current situation.”
Meloni and other Italian government officials have strongly condemned Israel’s air and bombing campaign in Lebanon, which has hit civilians as well as an Italian convoy that is part of a UN peacekeeping force. The agreement, ratified in 2005, includes ongoing cooperation between the two countries’ defence ministries and armed forces. It is automatically renewed every five years.
US State Department issues USD 10 mn reward for Iraqi militia leader
The bounty was placed on Ahmad al-Hamidawi, secretary general of the Iran-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah. In a post on X, in which it published al-Hamidawi’s photograph, the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program wrote that the group was “responsible for attacks on US diplomatic facilities in Iraq, the kidnapping of US citizens, and the killing of innocent Iraqi civilians.”
Last month, Kataib Hezbollah kidnapped an American journalist, Shelly Kittleson, in Baghdad, but released her several days later on condition that she leave the country. Officials with the group at the time told The Associated Press that in exchange, the Iraqi government would release several members of the militia who had been previously detained.
Kataib Hezbollah is allied with Lebanon’s Hezbollah but they are two entirely different groups with different leaders.
(With inputs from Associated Press)
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