The United States announced on Monday that it struck missile launch facilities in southern Iran, dealing a setback to ceasefire efforts despite apparent advances in negotiations aimed at ending the war in the Middle East.

After weeks of stalemates and threats, Washington and Tehran had reported progress in talks in recent days. Donald Trump had even presented the announcement of an agreement as imminent over the weekend, while U.S. and Iranian media leaked details of a future peace plan.

“To Protect Our Troops”

But on Monday, the landscape appeared to shift: on one hand, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an intensification of the offensive in Lebanon, and on the other, there were these new U.S. attacks against Iran.

“U.S. forces conducted self-defense strikes today in southern Iran to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces,” assured Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command. He provided no details and limited himself to saying that the targets included rocket launch sites and ships attempting “to lay mines.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed on Tuesday morning during a visit to India that an agreement with Iran was still possible. “There were some talks in Qatar, so we’ll see if we can make progress. There’s a lot of back-and-forth dialogue over specific language in the initial document, so it will take a few days,” he said.

Trump is seeking a way out of this war, which is unpopular in his country and has severely disrupted the global economy due to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s crude oil and gas transit. Rubio further stated that this key passage will be reopened “one way or another.” He added: “What is happening there is illicit. It is illegal.”

Oil prices reacted unevenly, after falling back below $100 per barrel on Monday. U.S. West Texas Intermediate lost 5.2 percent in Asia, while Brent crude rose 1.8 percent.

Caution on Both Sides

Trump had already dampened hopes of an imminent agreement, saying he did not want to “rush” and warning that he would only sign a “great” deal.

Tehran also expressed caution. “We have reached a conclusion on a large portion of the topics under discussion,” said foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqai. “But to say that this means the signing of an agreement is imminent — no one can make such a claim,” he added.

Meanwhile, a delegation from Pakistan, including the main mediator in the conflict and army chief Asim Munir as well as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, visited China on Monday, a country that supports their efforts.

On Monday night, Trump also fanned the flames by warning on social media that he expects Iran to hand over its enriched uranium to the United States for destruction: “The enriched uranium (nuclear dust!) will be delivered immediately to the United States to be taken home and destroyed or, preferably, in collaboration and coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran, destroyed on site or elsewhere acceptable,” he wrote.

It remained unclear whether he meant this was part of an emerging agreement with Iran.

Abraham Accords

Hours earlier, Trump had also hardened the conditions for reaching a pact by demanding that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, and Jordan sign the Abraham Accords. That set of treaties negotiated in 2020 led to the normalization of relations between several historically hostile nations and Israel.

Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates signed them, along with Morocco and Sudan. But many others have refused, particularly Saudi Arabia, as well as Syria and Lebanon, due to the conflict that devastated Gaza.

Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, warned on Tuesday that countries in the region will not be able to serve as a secure platform for U.S. bases in the future, in a statement disseminated by state television: “What is clear is that the hands of time will not turn back, and that the countries of the region will no longer serve as a shield for U.S. bases,” Khamenei said, asserting that the U.S. is losing influence in the Gulf, “moving further away day by day from the status it once held.”