“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.
Talks on a final US-Iran settlement to end the conflict are set to begin on Friday immediately after the signing of the accord in Switzerland and continue over a 60-day window to flesh out its details.
Meanwhile, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said his country’s negotiations with Israel in Washington were independent of the US-Iran deal to bring an end to the Middle East conflict.
Lebanon and Israel have been holding direct talks in Washington since April, seeking to end the hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah and separate their conflict from the wider regional war.
But the announcement on Monday of the US-Iran deal, which Iran and mediator Pakistan say includes Lebanon, has reshuffled the cards.
“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.
But “interference in Lebanese affairs is not permitted”, he added.
Aoun expressed hope that next week’s fifth round of talks “will be more positive, particularly considering the US administration’s great interest in Lebanon”.
“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,” he said.
“I reassure the Lebanese that nobody is tying us to any other country, and any settlement will be through us, not at our expense.”
While violence has declined in Lebanon after the US-Iran deal was announced, Israeli strikes on the south have killed at least five people since then, according to state media, which also reported Israeli raids on several south Lebanon areas on Wednesday. (AFP)
