Sri Lanka, June 26 -- It is like walking through a minefield. The memorandum of understanding (MoU), signed on June 17 by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and US President Donald Trump, is surviving on a diplomatic shoestring despite a still-unbridged trust deficit between the belligerents and sinister efforts by Israel to torpedo it.

Israel is not going to give up its efforts to sabotage the deal anytime soon. It knows well that the emerging security architecture of West Asia will not serve its national interest, especially its unlawful drive to annex as much Arab land as it can. Hence, it pays no heed to US calls to end military operations in Lebanon.

Trump seems determined to preserve the hard-earned MoU, but at the same time he ...