Trump threatens fresh bombing if Iran ‘misbehaves’ as Lebanon says Israel talks separate from US-Iran deal

Dr Anwar Mohammed Gargash, Diplomatic Adviser to the UAE President said discussions about any new regional arrangements must acknowledge Iran's direct aggression against the UAE and other GCC countries.

Writing on X, Gargash was responding to comments by former Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, who had welcomed the US-Iran understanding and called for it to serve as a starting point for broader regional agreements, including renewed attention to the Palestinian issue.

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An Iranian official said Wednesday that the funeral procession for late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by US-Israeli strikes in February, will pass through Iraq before his burial in Iran.

In a video carried by state media, Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani said the farewell ceremonies and funeral for Khamenei will be held from July 4 to 9.

"On 8 July 2026, they will take place in Iraq, and on 9 July 2026, God willing, in Mashhad" in Iran, where Khamenei will be buried, he added.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Wednesday that the country's negotiations with Israel in Washington were independent of the US-Iran deal to bring an end to the Middle East conflict.

"The assurances we have received, and what we insist on, is that Lebanon's path in the negotiations is independent, though we are certainly for a ceasefire and for any country that helps us, including Iran," Aoun said, according to a statement from his office, after Iran and Pakistan said Lebanon was included in the US-Iran deal.

"The Lebanese state is sovereign in its decision-making, and for the first time, it is the one conducting the negotiations, and nobody is negotiating for us," Aoun said ahead of a fifth round of Israeli-Lebanese talks next week.

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US President Donald Trump on Wednesday warned Iran he was ready to resume military action if Tehran did not abide by its obligations, two days ahead of the signing of an accord to end the war between the foes.

"No it's not final. It's a memorandum of understanding," Trump said at the G7, referring to the agreement expected to be signed in Switzerland on Friday.

"If I don't like it we will go back to shooting at them," he added alongside Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

"If they don't behave, we'll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head."

"Because they misbehaved for 47 years," he said, referring to the Islamic republic, founded in the Islamic revolution after the ousting of the shah, a US ally, in 1979.

The US-Israeli war against Iran began on February 28 with the killing in airstrikes of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top officials.

The talks on a final US-Iran settlement to end the conflict are set to begin Friday immediately after the signing of the accord in Switzerland and continue over a 60-day window to flesh out its details.

The G7 summit of world powers in France is being chaired by President Emmanuel Macron as host but on Wednesday his guest US President Donald Trump left no doubt over who he believed was in charge.

"I'm the boss," Trump said as he strode in to the morning session of the last day of the three-day G7 summit, with the other leaders already in their seats.

Amid laughter, Macron appeared to take the comment with good humour. "How are you?" the French president asked. 

"Good, thank you," replied Trump, a tycoon before becoming president who famously hosted the TV show "The Apprentice" with its catchphrase "You're fired!", as he finally took his seat.

Fresh from clinching an accord to end the war with Iran and celebrating his 80th birthday, Trump's presence has dominated the summit in the spa town of Evian on Lake Geneva.

TotalEnergies' refinery in Saudi Arabia will not be fully repaired until early 2027, chief executive Patrick Pouyanné has told French lawmakers, according to the Economic Times. The facility is the SATORP plant in Jubail, on the kingdom's eastern Gulf coast, jointly owned by Saudi Aramco and TotalEnergies, with a capacity of about 460,000 barrels a day. TotalEnergies shut the refinery earlier this year after it was damaged during the war with Iran, a move that forced the company to halt roughly 15 per cent of its output. Pouyanné's timeline points to a lengthy outage at one of the group's largest refining and petrochemical sites.

Iranian forward Mehdi Torabi has received a visa for the United States that will allow him to play the rest of the tournament there, a team official said Tuesday.

Torabi, who sat on the bench in the squad's opening 2-2 draw with New Zealand, had originally only been granted permission to enter the country once, setting the team scrambling to find a solution that would allow him to return to face Belgium on Sunday.

NATO chief Mark Rutte on Wednesday hailed the US-Iran deal to end the Middle East war, saying the planned reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, would be a "massive step forward".

"The restoration of free passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be a massive step forward, and I know that many allies, through the initiative led by France and the United Kingdom, are ready to support," Rutte told a press conference in Brussels.

Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday hailed a deal on ending the Middle East war announced between Iran and the United States as the result of "encouraging work in dialogue and negotiation".

The United States and Iran agreed this week to a deal to end the conflict and Leo expressed his "gratitude" to those who helped the negotiations.

"I hope that this agreement will contribute to strengthening mutual trust, security, and stability in the Middle East by promoting paths of dialogue and cooperation between peoples," Leo said during his weekly audience at the Vatican.

The 70-year-old pope also spoke of the "painful" news about the war in Ukraine and prayed for "paths of dialogue... to make a just and lasting peace possible".

Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney on Wednesday said a US-Iran deal to end the Middle East war could be a "game changer" in the region and beyond.

There is "a likelihood that this memorandum of understanding agreement could be a game changer", Carney told reporters on the third day of a G7 leaders' meeting in the French town of Evian.

He pointed to encouraging discussions, which included US President Donald Trump, on Ukraine and Lebanon at the summit.

The Canadian premier said he noted a US "change in tone with respect to Ukraine" as Kyiv seeks to end more than four years of conflict following Russia's invasion.

Oil inventories held by OECD member countries fell in May to their lowest level since 1990 as governments drew down stocks to offset the blockage of Gulf crude shipments during the Middle East war, the International Energy Agency said Wednesday.

The drawdown since the start of the conflict has reached 163 million barrels in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development club of wealthy countries, the IEA said in its monthly report.

"Despite the significant reductions in demand for crude oil and refined products, the buffers in the system continue to erode at a record pace," the agency said.

To ease the burden from soaring oil prices due to Tehran's effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the IEA organised coordinated stock releases of 400 million barrels to the global market, of which 252 million have been released as of June 12.

Oil prices extended losses Wednesday and most equity markets rose, fuelled by the US-Iran deal, with attention now on peace talks and the reopening of the crucial Strait of Hormuz.

Crude has tumbled more than 10 percent this week on optimism for a lasting agreement between the two countries after more than three months of conflict that rattled energy markets and revived inflation.

The latest selling was boosted by a report in The Wall Street Journal that Washington could ease sanctions on Iranian crude as part of the deal to end the war, allowing Tehran to immediately sell crude and refined oil products.

Attention now turns to Friday's official signing ceremony in Switzerland and the subsequent negotiations that will focus on the fate of Tehran's nuclear programme and a plan for the lifting of international economic sanctions.

Britain's annual inflation rate was unchanged at 2.8 percent in May as higher petrol prices caused by the US-Iran war were offset by lower food costs, official data showed Wednesday.

The Consumer Prices Index level matched April's reading, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, while an analysts' consensus forecast had been for an increase to 3.0 percent.

"While the war in the Middle East pushes prices up globally, we have got the right economic plan and inflation has held steady," finance minister Rachel Reeves said in response.

Even though the United States and Iran agreed this week to a deal to end the conflict, inflation could still rise in the coming months with energy costs remaining above pre-war levels. 

A US-Iran ceasefire could mark a turning point for UAE airlines, with carriers expected to accelerate the restoration of disrupted flight networks, rebuild passenger confidence and benefit from a rebound in travel demand, aviation analysts said.

The agreement, if signed as planned, could provide relief for Emirates, flydubai, Etihad Airways and Air Arabia, which have faced weeks of operational disruption caused by regional tensions, airspace restrictions and weaker demand.

A US-Iran deal aimed at ending the four-month conflict will be signed at Switzerland’s mountainside Burgenstock resort on Friday, AFP reported.

“In short, if the deal is signed this Friday as planned, then airlines like Emirates and flydubai, along with Air Arabia and Etihad are immediately going to see a robust and huge uptick in demand for travel again,” said Saj Ahmad, Chief Analyst at London-based StrategicAero Research.

He said the UAE’s position as a global aviation gateway means passenger confidence could return quickly once stability improves.

Israeli forces on Wednesday carried out airstrikes on several areas in south Lebanon, state media reported, despite a peace deal in the Middle East war that includes Lebanon.

Lebanon's National News Agency said Israeli warplanes launched raids targeting the Nabatieh al-Fawqa area and the eastern outskirts of neighbouring town Kfar Tebnit. 

The Israelis also launched a drone strike on the town of Ansariyeh in the Zahrani area, NNA reported.

While violence has declined in Lebanon since a US-Iran agreement to end the Middle East war was announced on Monday, Israeli strikes on the south have still killed at least five people since the deal, according to NNA.

South Korea's president has urged US President Donald Trump to help him make peace with North Korea, "just as he has resolved the conflict in the Middle East", Lee Jae Myung's office said on Wednesday.

The United States and Iran are set to sign a memorandum of understanding on Friday to end their war, and there has been speculation that the Trump administration may then turn its attention to North Korea.

Trump fuelled that interest shortly after announcing the Iran deal, posting on social media an uncaptioned photograph of himself with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at their 2018 Singapore summit.

Trump asked Lee about developments in inter-Korean relations during an exchange at the G7 summit in France, Seoul's presidential office said in a statement Wednesday.

Iranian oil tankers have exited the zone in the Gulf blockaded by the US Navy, the TankerTrackers website said on Wednesday, calling it the country's "first crude oil exports in two months".

"At least two National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) VLCC supertankers named DIONA (9569695) and HERO2 (9362073) have exited the US Navy blockade perimeter carrying a combined total of 3.8 million barrels of Iranian crude oil between them," TankerTrackers said in a post on X, citing digital tracking data corroborated by satellite imagery.

The site - which monitors oil shipments and storage - later added that a third NITC tanker had "exited the blockade line with 1 million barrels of Iranian crude oil".

The United States and Iran are preparing to formally sign an interim peace agreement in Geneva on Friday (June 19). Both sides portray the deal as a strategic victory.

Key details of the accord remain shrouded in mystery.

The agreement, described as a memorandum of understanding (MoU), is expected to launch a 60-day negotiating period focused on Iran's nuclear programme, regional security issues, and the future framework of relations between Washington and Tehran.

Bloomberg has reported on what it called the "near-final" 14-point US-Iran interim agreement (or MoU).

President Trump has publicly rebuked Israel over its war against Hezbollah. "Israel's fighting Hezbollah too long and too many people are being killed." Trump, in an interview aired on Fox, said he opposed strikes that destroy apartment buildings filled with civilians and revealed he urged Israel to let Syria take the lead against Hezbollah instead. "If Israel can't do the job without killing everyone else, he'll do the job. Syria will do the job."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told President Donald Trump last year that he was the “greatest friend Israel ever had in the White House." Now, as Trump tries to finalise a deal to end the war with Iran, the US leader is unloading on Netanyahu with rhetoric that no other American leader has dared to use publicly.

He claimed credit for Israel's existence — “without me, there would be no Israel” — and cursed his judgment in interviews.

Speaking on Tuesday at the annual G7 summit in France, Trump said he told Netanyahu that he's been unhappy with his recent moves.

He even described him as “crazy.”

The United States and Iran are to launch talks on a final settlement to their conflict on Friday (June 19, 2026) in Switzerland, officials said, as news that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen sent world oil prices tumbling.

Negotiations over a final deal are to start immediately after a signing ceremony and continue during a 60-day window, leading to decisions on the fate of Iran's nuclear programme and a plan for the lifting of international economic sanctions.

Iran's military threatened to respond to Israel after strikes in southern Lebanon killed four people despite a deal between Tehran and Washington ending the Middle East war, including in Lebanon.

"If the child-killing army of the Zionist regime does not put an end to its acts of aggression in southern Lebanon, it should await a harsh response from the powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran," said the Iranian military's central command Khatam Al Anbiya.

It added that Israel had violated the ceasefire in Lebanon "84 times" since the deal was announced.

Vice President JD Vance said the US has delayed releasing the Iran agreement text to ensure “proper sequencing” of sensitive diplomatic steps involving regional mediators, including Pakistan and Qatar, CNN reports.

Speaking on the Megyn Kelly Show, Vance said the timing is intended to respect ongoing discussions and sensitivities across the Arab and Muslim world.

He acknowledged growing calls for transparency but said officials are aiming to avoid disrupting delicate negotiations.

Vance added that the full text of the memorandum of understanding is expected to be released “at the very latest” by Friday.

The leaders’ discussions about the vital waterway at their summit in France have included looking at other supply routes that could be opened to bring oil and gas out of the Gulf, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“There were discussions to see how we can depend less on the strait,” he said. “This has to change for the future.”

Before the Iran war, a fifth of the world’s crude oil passed through the maritime chokepoint.

“Part of the discussions were, ‘OK, how can we imagine, finance, and build infrastructures, sometimes on the terrestrial part, that will be able to go outside of the track of the Strait of Hormuz?’” Confavreux said.

Iran’s top diplomat said that the tentative deal to end the war with the United States would require Israel to withdraw from Lebanon — a condition Israel has already rejected. The contradictory interpretations could sink the agreement and lead to the resumption of all-out war.

The deal between the U.S. and Iran has not been made public, and while Israel is not party to the agreement, it is part of the war: It joined the U.S. in launching strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, and has since fought the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon and seized large swaths of that country.

“Without the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they occupied during this war, the war has not fully come to an end,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said.

A US official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the deal’s outlines said it did not call for an Israeli withdrawal. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel would remain in Lebanon “as long as necessary.”

Switzerland's foreign ministry says a signing ceremony for a deal between the United States and Iran will take place Friday at the Bürgenstock resort near the city of Luzern.

Ministry officials said Tuesday that the location was proposed by Pakistani and Qatari mediators, along with the US and Iran.

The ministry said it has been in close contact with the four countries about the possible signing of the memorandum of understanding that US and Iranian officials announced over the weekend.

An Iranian deputy foreign minister on Tuesday said the two-month US naval blockade on Iranian ports had been lifted ahead of the planned formal signing of a deal ending the war.

"The lifting of the blockade was something we had emphasised from the outset. It has now begun, and the blockade has been lifted prior to the formal signing" scheduled for Friday, said Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi, according to the government's website.

The working session is titled “Forging New Partnerships and Rebuilding International Solidarity” and is attended by the G7 countries and the partner countries of Brazil, Egypt, India, Kenya and South Korea, along with the World Bank and the African Development Bank.

Trump was sitting between Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He’s scheduled to have a face-to-face meeting with Modi on Wednesday.

Day 109: Syria will do the job vs Hezbollah: Trump

Day 108: Trump says Strait of Hormuz will be 'completely open'

Day 107: Trump says Iran deal reached, Tehran claims victory

Day 106: Trump says deal to be signed Sunday, Hormuz to reopen

Day 105: Pakistan PM says US–Iran peace deal text agreed

Day 104: Trump touts Iran peace deal, to be signed in Europe

Day 103: Iran strikes Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan