Khamenei links any US-Iran deal to Israel ending attacks on Lebanon

Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has said any agreement between Tehran and Washington depends on Israel stopping its attacks on Lebanon. He made the remarks in a post on X on Sunday, describing the "absolute, unconditional termination" of what he called aggression against Lebanon as a primary condition for any deal. The statement comes as reports point to renewed diplomacy between Iran and the United States.

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Khamenei said Iran's position is tied to preserving Lebanon's territorial integrity and ending the conflict in Lebanon. He also voiced support for Hezbollah, its former leader Hassan Nasrallah, and people in southern Lebanon, which he described as the main focus of Israeli attacks. In the same posts, he said Iran considers defending Hezbollah to be a strategic mandate.

The intervention adds a new political condition to already fragile regional diplomacy. According to the supporting material, Iran had previously insisted that Israeli strikes on Lebanon end before any wider settlement, and that demand was included in the first clause of a memorandum signed between Iran and the United States in June. That memorandum later collapsed amid a dispute over the Strait of Hormuz, underscoring how quickly the talks have been overtaken by wider security tensions.

Lebanon has been drawn deeper into the conflict since March, when Hezbollah launched strikes on northern Israel. Hezbollah said those attacks were in response to the killing of then-Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the war's first day, February 28, and to near-daily Israeli bombardment of Lebanese territory. The material says those strikes were viewed by Hezbollah as a violation of a ceasefire that had ended an earlier round of hostilities in 2024.

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The latest comments therefore sit at the intersection of diplomacy, cross-border warfare, and Iran's long-standing support for Hezbollah. The issue also matters because it affects several overlapping negotiations at once. On June 26, after the US-Iran memorandum was signed, Lebanon and Israel agreed to a US-mediated framework that called for a phased Israeli withdrawal from occupied Lebanese territory, but without a timetable.

The framework said Israel would withdraw once Hezbollah is disarmed, a condition rejected by Iran and Hezbollah, which were not parties to the talks. That leaves the diplomatic track dependent on security developments on the ground as well as on the positions of the main armed and political actors. What remains unclear is whether the renewed diplomacy between Tehran and Washington can survive the collapse of the June memorandum and the continuing dispute over Lebanon.

The Lebanese army said on Sunday that Israeli forces were obstructing the first phase of the withdrawal process, including by refusing to leave designated territories. It is not clear from the available material whether any new talks have produced a revised formula or whether the latest statement is intended mainly as a public pressure tactic. The next developments to watch are any response from Washington, Israel, Lebanon, or Hezbollah, and whether the reported halt in attacks leads to a broader pause in the conflict.

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