Talks between several countries around the Middle East are heating up amid a diplomatic push to clinch peace deals around the region.
US President Donald Trump said the leaders of Israel and Lebanon will hold talks on April 16 -- the first such negotiations since 1993 -- as they seek a cease-fire to end more than six weeks of war with Iran-backed Hezbollah. Hezbollah is both a militant group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon. It is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, although the European Union has only blacklisted its armed wing.
Separately, Gila Gamliel, a member of Israel's security cabinet, told Israel's Army Radio that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will speak with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun. But AFP and Reuters quoted unnamed Lebanese sources as saying Beirut was "not aware" of any talks and had "no information" about upcoming contact with Israel's leadership.
Trump wrote on social media that Washington was "trying to get a little breathing room between Israel and Lebanon," claiming that a call between the leaders would happen on April 16. He gave no further details.
The disconnect echoed confusion earlier this week when Trump announced ambassador-level talks before Beirut said officials there had been notified. Those talks went ahead regardless.
The April 14 meeting in Washington, which was the first major high-level engagement between the two governments in more than three decades, ended with all sides agreeing to launch direct negotiations at a mutually agreed time and venue.
The core gap between the parties remains wide. Lebanon has made a full cease-fire its precondition for further talks. Israel has refused, with a spokesman for Netanyahu saying there would be no cease-fire with Hezbollah. Netanyahu has said the campaign's goal is the disarmament of Hezbollah.
Fighting continued through April 15. Israeli strikes killed at least 20 people in southern Lebanon, among them four paramedics killed in a "triple-tap" strike while responding to wounded in the village of Mayfadoun, according to Lebanese state-run National News Agency. More than 2,100 people have been killed in Lebanon since the renewed fighting began and over 1 million displaced, according to Lebanese health officials.
Amid the Lebanon impasse, Iran and the United States are reportedly looking to arrange a second round of peace talks as a fragile, Pakistani-brokered two-week cease-fire that paused 40 days of fighting expires on April 22.
Reports on April 15 said Tehran and Washington were holding indirect talks to extend the cease-fire, but there has been no official comment from either side.
A second round now appears likely, though not yet confirmed. The White House said it feels "good about prospects of a deal," noting that a potential second round would likely again be held in Pakistan. A Pakistani military delegation led by army chief Asim Munir landed in Tehran on April 15 carrying a new message from Washington, in the latest effort to revive negotiations.
Meanwhile, Iran and the United States are said to have made some progress in the attempt -- mediated by Pakistan -- to reach a peace agreement as a temporary truce between the two begins its second and final week. Major questions remain, including over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
Munir visited Tehran after the war's first round of peace talks last weekend in Islamabad ended without an agreement. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said on April 16 that no dates have been set for a second round of talks between Washington and Tehran.
Attention also turns to Paris on April 16, where a separate but linked crisis will dominate. French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will co-chair a videoconference of around 40 nations aimed at restoring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway that has been largely choked off since the start of the US-Israeli air campaign against Iran on February 28.
Discussions are expected to cover possible financial sanctions on Iran if it continues blocking the waterway, alongside steps to work with the shipping industry to resume transit.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has carried out several confirmed attacks on merchant ships and reportedly laid sea mines in the strait in retaliation for the US-Israeli aerial campaign. Begore the war, the Strait of Hormuz carried roughly a quarter of the world's seaborne oil and a fifth of its liquefied natural gas.
A European official familiar with the summit told RFE/RL that Europe would take action only after there is a peace agreement between Iran and the United States. The official said the EU's "substantial" reluctance to join a military effort to reopen the strait stems from the lack of anti-drone defenses in the bloc's naval capabilities.
"Even our brand-new minehunter that will be operational in September doesn't have anti-drone tech onboard," the source said.
The summit, the official said, is meant to serve as "a gesture of goodwill to Trump...with the goal not to torpedo the NATO Ankara Summit," scheduled for July 7-8. Trump has expressed his disappointment with NATO for not joining the war with Iran.
The United States is not participating in the Paris summit after Trump said securing the waterway was not Washington's responsibility. Trump has instead ordered a separate naval blockade of Iranian ports, which Britain has declined to join.
