Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at how the Persian Gulf views the U.S.-Iran interim peace deal, a deadly heat wave across Western Europe, and 10 years post-Brexit.
Assuaging Fears
Top U.S. and Iranian officials flew across the Middle East on Tuesday to rally support for the two countries’ tenuous 60-day cease-fire deal. But conflicting accounts of some of the agreement’s most controversial points are likely to complicate efforts to convince regional allies that both parties are committed to long-term peace, even as Washington and Tehran try to negotiate a final deal.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at how the Persian Gulf views the U.S.-Iran interim peace deal, a deadly heat wave across Western Europe, and 10 years post-Brexit.
Assuaging Fears
Top U.S. and Iranian officials flew across the Middle East on Tuesday to rally support for the two countries’ tenuous 60-day cease-fire deal. But conflicting accounts of some of the agreement’s most controversial points are likely to complicate efforts to convince regional allies that both parties are committed to long-term peace, even as Washington and Tehran try to negotiate a final deal.
Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Tuesday that Tehran had no plans to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to access the country’s most sensitive nuclear sites, including those hit by U.S. and Israeli airstrikes in June 2025. Yet just hours later, U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that “Iran has fully and completely agreed to highest level Nuclear inspections long into the future (Infinity!!!).” Trump separately told reporters that if Iran’s assertions about inspections were true, then he’d “cancel the meetings right now.”
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi similarly told Japanese broadcaster NHK on Tuesday that inspections would commence, though he did not give a start date or specify how the agency would access destroyed sites.
These competing claims are expected to exacerbate regional concerns that the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding signed last week does not effectively curb Tehran’s nuclear and military capabilities. Although Qatar and Oman appear to support the agreement, several Persian Gulf powers—namely, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain—are reportedly worried that the deal fails to limit Iran’s weapons arsenal and allows Tehran to access substantial funds that could be used to invest in its armed forces.
That is why U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio kicked off a two-day trip on Tuesday to those three countries. Landing in Abu Dhabi, Rubio insisted that Iran will not be allowed to charge tolls for passage through the Strait of Hormuz; he confirmed that the peace deal also requires Iranian proxy groups, such as Hezbollah, to halt their attacks on Israel; and he reiterated that Washington is committed to Gulf allies’ security. The UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain all house large U.S. military bases and were all hit by Iranian strikes during the monthslong conflict.
Trump also tried to assuage critics’ concerns on Tuesday, writing on Truth Social that the United States would control all released Iranian funds. “The Money and/or Sanctions that the U.S. Treasury is releasing goes into escrow, controlled by the U.S.A., and will be used for the purchase of food and medical supplies, exclusively from the United States,” the U.S. president wrote. Iranian officials disputed that claim, however.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian traveled to Pakistan on Tuesday to meet with the country’s leadership. Islamabad was a key mediator in the U.S.-Iran talks, and in a rare show of solidarity, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told Pezeshkian that he would travel to Tehran next week to pay his respects to late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike at the start of the war.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and lead Iranian negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf traveled to Oman on Tuesday to discuss the Strait of Hormuz’s future. During their meeting, the U.N. International Maritime Organization announced that it had a plan (alongside Oman and in close cooperation with Iran and other coastal states) to help hundreds of commercial ships trapped in the Persian Gulf pass through the strategic waterway. Iran had previously suggested that Oman could help impose tolls on commercial ships, prompting Trump at the time to threaten to “blow [Oman] up.”
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
Record-setting heat. Large swaths of Western Europe issued warnings this week for extreme heat waves. The most intense conditions are forecasted for France, Spain, and parts of the United Kingdom, though Germany, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Switzerland have also announced high-level heat alerts. Meteorologists, though, are hoping that a reprieve will come soon, with temperatures in some areas expected to drop on Wednesday and Thursday.
According to a 2025 report by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, Europe is the fastest-warming continent, and in recent years, it has recorded tens of thousands of heat-related deaths annually. Experts have pointed to altered weather patterns caused by climate change as the reason for rising temperatures. Air conditioning is also relatively rare in Europe. Unlike in the United States, where nearly 90 percent of homes have air conditioning, just around 20 percent of homes in Europe have it.
That includes in France, which recorded the country’s hottest day on record on Tuesday: 111.74 degrees Fahrenheit. With 54 French departments under red alerts (and that number expected to rise to 58 on Wednesday), some residents have resorted to swimming in unauthorized or dangerous waters to escape the heat, resulting in at least 40 deaths, mostly of young people. French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu convened an emergency meeting on Tuesday to address the spate of recent drownings.
A decade post-Brexit. Tuesday marked the 10-year anniversary of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union. Proponents of the “yes” vote at the time sought to give London greater control over its immigration and trade policies as well as free up funding for the British health service. Yet the post-Brexit era’s biggest legacy appears to be political instability, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s resignation on Monday paving the way for a seventh leader to try to take on Downing Street in just 10 years.
That person will likely be Andy Burnham, the Labour Party’s newest member of Parliament. Burnham won a special by-election in the northern English district of Makerfield last week, making him eligible to succeed Starmer once the latter finally stepped down. On Tuesday, Burnham met with fellow Labour politicians to discuss next steps for the party’s looming leadership contest; nominations open on July 9, and if there are no other contenders, then Burnham could become prime minister by July 17.
“Whoever eventually takes over will need to show far more imagination and courage than Starmer has” if Labour wants to avoid Downing Street returning to right-wing rule, John Kampfner argued in Foreign Policy last month. Local elections in May saw the far-right Reform UK party score big wins.
Targeting children. Israeli forces have deliberately targeted and killed Palestinian children in Gaza and the occupied West Bank in recent years, an independent U.N. inquiry found on Tuesday. According to the new report, Israeli troops have killed at least 20,179 children and injured more than 44,100 others since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza. These actions, experts argued, amount to acts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
Of total fatalities recorded during the first two years of the conflict, children made up around 30 percent. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel found that Israeli attacks purposefully targeted densely populated residential areas and critical infrastructure essential to children, such as healthcare facilities, orphanages, and schools. It also examined evidence of Israeli authorities using torture, inhumane, and degrading treatment against young people, including sexual and gender-based violence.
Israel’s mission in Geneva condemned the report, accusing the commission of ignoring the “brutal tactics of Hamas,” including the militant group’s use of human shields. Israel “consistently strives to minimize harm to children even in situations of conflict,” the mission added.
Odds and Ends
Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi has dominated this year’s World Cup with a host of jaw-dropping feats. After netting a “hat trick” (scoring three goals in a single game) against Algeria last Tuesday, the soon-to-be 39-year-old came just one goal away from breaking the all-time men’s World Cup scoring record. On Monday, Messi achieved that goal with not one but two successful shots against Austria, surpassing the record of 16 goals by German athlete Miroslav Klose. As Dani Rojas, FP World Brief writer’s favorite soccer player, would say, “Fútbol is life!”
