Germany says US-Iran agreement halt attacks creates chance for diplomacy

Iran’s goal in negotiations should be to secure compensation for losses it has suffered, Assembly of Experts member Mohsen Taheri said on Tuesday.

He said the US was trying to use negotiations to achieve goals it had failed to secure on the battlefield.

“What matters is standing firm on the red lines set by the Leader, and the negotiating team must not retreat from these principles,” he said.

Power was cut to 1,324 high-consumption customers in Iran’s southwestern Khuzestan province on Monday, the provincial electricity distribution company said.

Sattar Nazari, head of the company’s consumption management office, said the province would continue daily monitoring and cut power to high-use customers without leniency to protect the grid.

He added that the cuts affected administrative, commercial, residential and agricultural users after consumption was monitored remotely through smart meters.

Two IRGC members were killed and two others wounded in a shooting in Paveh county in western Iran’s Kermanshah province, the provincial IRGC public relations office said on Tuesday.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards office described the incident as a “terrorist” attack and said the shooting took place outside a home on Monday evening.

Authorities were investigating the details of the incident and working to identify those behind it, it added.

US Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said on Monday he saw little evidence that Iran would agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

“It’s just that the administration seems optimistic that Iran is going to agree to open up the strait, it’s all going to go fine. I don’t see a lot of evidence for that,” Smith told reporters.

He said the issue was not that officials were withholding information, but that they believed “everything’s fine” and Iran would accept US demands.

“I just, I doubt that,” Smith said.

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said on Monday that all but two South Korean-linked vessels stranded in the Strait of Hormuz have now exited the strategic waterway.

A total of 26 South Korean-linked ships were in the Strait when Iran closed the chokepoint on Feb. 28, the day the US-Israeli war began.

The update marks a significant improvement in maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz as implementation of the interim US-Iran peace agreement continues, although shipping volumes remain below pre-war levels and security concerns persist.