WASHINGTON, April 10. /TASS/. The US and Iran are likely to be unable to sign an agreement on ending the conflict, but Washington will stop participating in it, said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

"I'm not optimistic at all about the negotiations," he said at a conference hosted by the Arab Center Washington DC on Thursday. "I don't think there will be an agreement. I think the end result will be a non-agreed new status quo after this, in which the US actually will pull itself out of the war, but Israel will continue. The Iranians and Israelis may be at a fight with each other, but [US President Donald] Trump will find his exit out of this."

"Part of the reason there won't be an agreement is precisely because of Lebanon," the expert explained. In his opinion, Tehran considers it "essential" to ensure that the ceasefire regime extends to Lebanon. "The idea that they [the Iranian side] would strike their own ceasefire but abandon Lebanon, particularly now when Hezbollah entered the war, is very, very challenging for them," Parsi added. In his opinion, Tehran also fears that "if the war continues in Lebanon, it will spill over to Iran once more."

In addition, as the expert said, from Iran's point of view, whether the Washington administration will be able to achieve an end to Israel's strikes on Lebanon is a "test for the United States. If the United States cannot rein in Israel, what's the purpose and the point of an agreement with the United States? Because it means that Israel can restart the wars, and the United States is incapable of staying out of the wars that Israel starts. So what's the point of the ceasefire? What's the point of an agreement if the United States cannot show that it can control the Israeli side?" explained Parsi.

"So there are many reasons why I don't think this ceasefire will hold, will actually lead to anything in terms of an actual agreement. It will be a new status quo."

Ceasefire agreements

On April 7, Trump announced a two-week mutual ceasefire with Iran. According to him, the parties have resolved almost all the disputed issues, and Washington considers Tehran's 10-point proposal "a working basis" for further negotiations. He said the decision was made with Iran being ready to open the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran agreed to stop "defensive attacks" if the Islamic Republic is not attacked. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the mediator between the parties, invited them to Islamabad for talks.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Jewish state supports the US decision on the two-week ceasefire. At the same time, its statement emphasized that the agreement does not apply to Lebanon, where the Israeli army is fighting against Hezbollah military units.

On Wednesday, Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said that three key points of the ceasefire agreement had been violated before the start of negotiations. These include the invasion of Lebanon, the violation of Iranian air borders, and the Islamic Republic's renunciation of the right to enrich uranium.