The China Mail - Iran truce on the rocks as Guards threaten 'new fronts'

Iran's news agency Tasnim reported Tehran had suspended dialogue with mediators in protest at Israel's expanding offensive in Lebanon.

Weeks of indirect talks marked by threats and several waves of air strikes have so far failed to agree an end to the war or the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the key shipping channel for Gulf oil and gas.

The latest exchange of fire coincided with Israel expanding its ground offensive in Lebanon, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to push deeper into the country and instructing the military to strike "terror targets" in a south Beirut district.

Israel's Arabic-language spokesman posted on X that residents of Dahiyeh should evacuate "to preserve their safety", and AFP images showed huge traffic jams as residents tried to flee.

The United States has backed its ally's operations in Lebanon against the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, while still trying to come to an agreement with Iran to end the war it launched in late February, and to reopen Hormuz and impose controls on Iran's nuclear programme.

But Iran again said on Monday it had not yet reopened any nuclear negotiations and insisted that Israel must halt its offensive in Lebanon before any wider deal to end the war could be agreed.

Ahead of a UN Security Council emergency meeting on Lebanon, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's spokesman said: "We are deeply alarmed by the escalation in military activities across southern Lebanon and beyond."

- 'Direct war' -

The US naval blockade on Iran's ports and the escalation in Lebanon were "clear evidence of US non-compliance with the ceasefire", Iran's chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf posted on X.

Late on Monday, Tasnim reported that "the Iranian negotiating team is suspending dialogues and exchange of texts through mediators", blaming Israel's actions in Lebanon.

And in a message carried by state TV, the Revolutionary Guards intelligence body said "Iran considers crossing the red lines in Lebanon and Gaza to mean direct war".

It added: "In return, it is determined to carry out defensive operations by taking meaningful actions and opening new fronts, in addition to preserving the Strait of Hormuz equation."

Tasnim also reported that Iran would continue to block the Strait of Hormuz and, with its allies, "activate other fronts, including the Bab al-Mandab Strait" at the entrance of the Red Sea.

Tehran's Houthi rebels have previously attacked shipping in and around the latter strait, and closing it could disrupt millions more barrels of oil that Saudi Arabia exports daily through its Red Sea port of Yanbu.

Meanwhile, Mohsen Rezaee, a military adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, posted on X that "the escalation of tensions in Lebanon will not be tolerated".

"The patience of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran has a limit," he added.

- Sticking points -

Speaking at a weekly briefing, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said: "No negotiations have taken place on the details of the nuclear file. At this stage, our priority is ending the war."

"We insist that a ceasefire in Lebanon is an essential condition for any deal aimed at ending the war," he said, adding: "The United States is also violating the ceasefire, including this morning."

The US military said it had carried out "self-defence strikes" on Iranian radar and drone control sites over the weekend -- its third such wave in just over a week -- after a US MQ-1 drone was downed.

Shortly afterwards, the Revolutionary Guards told state media they had targeted an airbase used by the US military from which the attack originated.

They did not identify the country hosting the base, but Kuwait's military said its air defence had intercepted "hostile missile and drone attacks".

Iran was already in talks with the United States about its nuclear programme in February, when the US and Israel launched air and missile strikes that killed 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 $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.

A.Kwok--ThChM