Middle East crisis live: Tehran says it will charge ships in strait of Hormuz after 60 days; US-Iran presidents sign peace deal

Donald Trump boards Air Force One as he departs Geneva airport after taking part in the G7 summit in Switzerland. Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

However, lead Iranian negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said the Hormuz strait “will not return to prewar conditions” and that Iran would charge ships to transit the waterway after the 60-day toll-free period stipulated in the agreement. Trump has previously said he will not accept tolls being imposed for crossing the vital energy route.

In other developments:

• Iran’s leaders did not address the new threats while celebrating the deal, with Ghalibaf saying on state television: “Everything we sought to achieve through military action, we obtained several times over through negotiation; ⁠it was not even comparable.” The deal included the unfreezing of billions of dollars in Iranian assets, he claimed.
• Trump and Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian both digitally signed the memorandum of understanding in English and Farsi, ‌US and Iranian officials said. Iran’s foreign ministry said the agreement was already in effect as of Wednesday, as did mediator Pakistan.
• Under the agreement Iran also undertakes not to build nuclear weapons, reaffirming a vow it had made for decades. It also agreed to an on-site “down-blending” of its stockpile of enriched uranium.
• Trump signed just before a grand dinner with French president Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles, the site of the signing of the treaty that formally ended the first world war. G7 leaders hailed the agreement at their summit in France. The US has said a formal signing ceremony for the deal is due to be held in Switzerland on Friday.
• Oil prices fell again on Wednesday on prospects for the reopening of the Hormuz strait, with Brent crude futures below $80 – their lowest level since the war’s start – but later regaining more than 1% after Trump threatened renewed violence. After the signing US crude dipped 1.25% to $75.83 a barrel and Brent crude was down 1.4% to $78.41 a barrel.
• Donald Trump entered the war with maximalist goals and exits it with a pragmatic decision to end the conflict despite the political cost, Andrew Roth writes in this analysis.
  With news agencies

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