Washington, United States. The United States and Iran reached an outline agreement on Thursday to extend their ceasefire, pending approval from President Donald Trump, after Iran targeted a U.S. air base in Kuwait following U.S. strikes on what Washington described as an Iranian drone operation.
Ceasefire extension
According to a source familiar with the matter, the two sides agreed a memorandum of understanding to extend the truce for 60 days, but the plan still required Trump’s signoff. Axios first reported the development, saying negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme would take place during that period.
Market reaction and negotiations
The reports prompted oil prices to reverse course and trade lower on hopes of a potential reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump has repeatedly said the end of the war is close, but told media at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that he was not yet satisfied with the negotiations and that the U.S. was not discussing easing sanctions, one of Tehran’s demands.
Latest violence
The latest attacks, while limited, highlighted the fragility of negotiations to turn the tenuous early-April ceasefire into a lasting agreement to end the three-month-old war, which has killed thousands, and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. Central Command said U.S. forces shot down five Iranian attack drones and struck a ground control station in the port city of Bandar Abbas that was about to launch a sixth. Kuwaiti forces later intercepted a ballistic missile fired toward the country, which hosts a large U.S. base.
“These actions were measured, purely defensive and intended to maintain the ceasefire,” a U.S. official who requested anonymity to speak about military operations told Reuters earlier.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had targeted the U.S. base responsible for an early-morning attack near Bandar Abbas airport and warned that any repeat would lead to a “more decisive response,” Tasnim news agency reported.
Kuwait condemned the attack and demanded that Iran immediately halt what it called a serious escalation.
The violence, the second flare-up this week, coincided with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which was being celebrated across the region where multiple countries have been drawn into the conflict triggered by U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28.