Oil prices rose in early trading on Monday as market participants weighed mixed signals from the US and Iran, with concerns that a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could take longer to materialise.
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Futures for international benchmark Brent crude for October delivery gained 1.04% to $84.42 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate futures for September advanced 0.83% to $78.83 a barrel.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards insisted on Sunday that they would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until the US complied with a list of demands.
Tehran insists on retaining control of the waterway – through which a fifth of world oil and LNG pass – after the war and wants to charge tolls for passage, which Washington has pushed back against.
Attacks in the strait, which was free to transit before the war, led to the collapse of an April ceasefire, and mediators have urged both sides to return to the terms of a subsequent June memorandum that set out a path for peace talks.
Iran on Saturday released a list of conditions for reopening the strait, including an end to the war on all fronts, the lifting of a US counterblockade of Iranian ports, the end of sanctions, the release of frozen assets and compensation for wartime damage, the Tasnim news agency reported.
Those conditions echoed the terms of the June agreement, which included a provision to create a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday that their strategy was to maintain their blockade “until the enemy accepts all our conditions… the strait is now actually a theatre of war for us and not just a waterway”.
For his part, US President Donald Trump said in an interview: “We are low-keying it.”
“We are only semi-negotiating with them,” he was quoted as saying. “We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money.”
“It will work out,” he added. “It’s like a chess game.”
A deal between the US and Iran could be signed within 48 hours, according to US officials. The agreement would reportedly focus on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and could mark a first step towards broader negotiations.
Saudi Arabia’s crown prince spoke to Donald Trump about the deepening crisis between Washington and Tehran, urging a renewed push for dialogue over further military escalation, hours before the United States president halted his latest attacks on Iran.
The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Sunday that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) spoke to Trump by phone and “stressed the need to prioritise dialogue to reduce escalation and the importance of making every possible effort to achieve calm that paves the way for diplomatic solutions”.
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MBS also highlighted the need to preserve the Gulf’s security and stability and prevent a wider conflict “whose repercussions would affect regional and international security and stability”, SPA added.
Trump announced on his Truth Social platform early on Sunday that he would hold off on new strikes against Iran, citing the outline of a deal to end five months of war.
On Saturday, he had struck a very different note, declaring the US “locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran”, at levels of force not seen “since World War II”.
The reversal capped a day of dramatic swings in tone from Washington, after weeks in which the conflict has repeatedly threatened to widen into a broader Gulf confrontation.
Trump said he was calling off the planned attack only because Iran and other Middle Eastern governments had asked Washington to hold back, insisting “the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to”.
That deal, he wrote, would involve reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ending Iran’s “nuclear threat,” with Israel joining the US “in this commitment”.
Iranian state media quoted military officials dismissing Trump’s claim that Tehran had sought a pause as “nothing but a new lie”, insisting Iranian forces remained on high alert.
‘Keep the dialogue going’
The Saudi crown prince’s intervention, according to a person familiar with the call cited by US media, centred on concern that a major US strike on Iran’s energy infrastructure could trigger Iranian retaliation against Gulf oil and gas facilities.
The kingdom has already faced direct attacks in recent weeks, intercepting drones aimed at its eastern oil facilities and at Riyadh, while Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen have separately struck Saudi crude infrastructure and threatened a Red Sea naval blockade.
The war began on February 28, when the US and Israel launched strikes aimed at destroying Iran’s missile programme, preventing a nuclear weapon and cutting off support for allied armed groups.
A June ceasefire collapsed within weeks in a dispute over shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway carrying roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and gas exports, reigniting the fighting in July.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US strikes had destroyed much of Iran’s navy, air force and missile defences, leaving it without the “conventional shield” it once relied on. “That’s changed the whole dynamic,” he told Fox News, arguing that the US was now approaching negotiations with Iran “from a position of strength, not from a position of weakness.”
Marlin Hardinger, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, said direct Saudi involvement in mediation, alongside Qatar, Pakistan and Oman, appeared to have pushed Trump to reconsider, “letting some of the senior leaders in the region step forward and take charge of this”, as he put it.
Diplomats’ central task now, Hardinger told Al Jazeera, was simply to “keep the dialogue going”.
Mediators in Islamabad and Doha say they are cautiously optimistic that stalled talks could resume within days.
Iran’s supreme leader calls for ‘absolute, unconditional termination’ of Israel’s attacks on Lebanon amid reports of renewed diplomacy.
Published On 26 Jul 202626 Jul 2026
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has said that peace between Tehran and the United States is contingent on Israel stopping its attacks on Lebanon.
Khamenei made the statement in a post on X on Sunday.
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Iran “has designated the preservation of Lebanon’s territorial integrity, and the absolute, unconditional termination of the Zionist regime’s aggression as the primary condition for any agreement to ending the imposed war against the aggressive US,” he wrote.
Khamenei also voiced his support for the Lebanese group Hezbollah, its former leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and the people of southern Lebanon – the focal point of Israel’s attacks – in a series of posts.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran considers the defense of these oppressed yet powerful mujahideen [of Hezbollah] to be its strategic mandate,” Khamenei said.
Iran has insisted on an end to Israeli strikes on Lebanon a precondition for ending the war, enshrining that demand in the first clause of the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two countries in June.
That agreement has since collapsed amid a dispute over the Strait of Hormuz.
Lebanon was drawn into the conflict in March after Hezbollah launched strikes on northern Israel, citing both the killing of then-Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the war’s first day, February 28, and Israel’s near-daily bombardment of Lebanese territory – attacks it says violated a ceasefire that had ended an earlier round of hostilities in 2024.
On June 26, following the signing of the US-Iran MoU, Lebanon and Israel signed a US-mediated framework agreement stipulating a phased Israeli withdrawal from occupied Lebanese territory, but without a timetable for the withdrawal.
Instead, it said Israel will withdraw from occupied territories once Hezbollah is disarmed.
Iran and Hezbollah, which was not a party to the talks, have rejected the deal.
While the first phase is Israel’s withdrawal from three “pilot zones”, the Lebanese army said on Sunday that Israeli forces are obstructing the process, including by refusing to withdraw from designated territories.
As of Sunday, Israel was still bulldozing, shelling and conducting combing operations with machineguns across large areas of southern Lebanese territory it is occupying.
At least 4,329 people have been killed, while 37 Israeli soldiers and four Israeli civilians have died in the latest round of violence in Lebanon.
Israel violated a previous ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel more than 10,000 times, according to UN peacekeepers.
Mojtaba Khamenei is the son of the former Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He was selected as supreme leader after the US and Israel’s assassination of his father.
Khamenei’s statement on Lebanon comes as war spreads into Yemen, with reports of an exchange of attacks between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia.
Tehran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen have fired missiles and drones at two of Saudi Arabia’s most strategically important oil facilities on the Red Sea, in a major escalation of the latest simmering regional conflict to be reignited by the war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran.
But the skies over the country at the epicentre of the widening war were quiet for a second successive night, with no new US attacks on Iran reported by Sunday morning.
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Iran had been pounded by 13 consecutive waves of overnight US air strikes since July 11, after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attacked tankers trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz. As hostilities escalated, both sides declared that an interim peace agreement signed in June was dead, and a second phase of talks to finalise a comprehensive peace deal appeared doomed.
But there have been no US air strikes since Friday, and tentative signs are emerging that Washington and Tehran are still talking via mediators and might return to more meaningful discussions.
Even if another fragile truce is agreed, however, the cascade of consequences unleashed by the war is still stoking conflict and confrontation elsewhere.
Iran’s attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz have put a stranglehold on exports of oil and raw materials for fertiliser, sending energy prices soaring and raising the risk of a food security crisis in some of the world’s most vulnerable countries.
In March, in response to attacks on Iran, the Tehran-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon resumed missile attacks on Israel, which then launched a devastating invasion of southern Lebanon that has displaced 1.2 million people.
Now, another smouldering regional conflict has erupted again, between US-allied Saudi Arabia and the Houthi movement which controls most of northern and western Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa. Saudi Arabia and its regional allies joined a brutal civil war against the Houthis in 2015, until a truce was agreed in 2022.
Risk of global crisis
The truce collapsed this month after an attack on Sanaa airport to stop an Iranian plane landing provoked the Houthis to fire ballistic missiles at Saudi Arabia. Last Monday, the Houthis declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia, and late on Friday the Saudis launched air strikes on the Houthi-held city of Hodeidah.
In retaliation, Houthi forces launched Sunday’s attacks on facilities belonging to Saudi state oil giant Aramco in the coastal cities of Jizan and Yanbu, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said.
There has been no comment from Saudi Arabia on the extent of any damage to Aramco’s refinery in Jizan, but a large column of smoke was seen rising after the attack.
In Yanbu, Saudi Arabia’s principal west coast export gateway, two ballistic missiles aimed at oil installations were intercepted by a Patriot battery operated in Saudi Arabia by the Greek military under an agreement with Riyadh.
The escalating conflict has raised fears that the Houthis could block the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. If both the Bab al-Mandeb and Hormuz straits were blocked, the resulting supply chain crisis would cause major economic damage across the world.
Entangled wars
Besides spreading to the Red Sea, the US-Iran war has become entangled with the deadliest active conflict in the world – Russia’s attempted conquest of Ukraine.
A long-range strike on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea on Saturday caused an explosion that killed one sailor and wounded another, according to Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which blamed the attack on Ukraine and summoned Kyiv’s charge d’affaires in Tehran to convey its condemnation of the “hostile and criminal” act.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X that Kyiv had achieved “very strong results” with long-range strikes in the Caspian Sea, hitting “vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran, as well as a warship”.
Zelenskyy claimed in further comments on X on Saturday that since the start of July, Kyiv had detected “active Russian satellite surveillance of the Gulf states and US military facilities located there”. He said the satellite images were passed to Tehran to help the IRGC identify targets for ballistic missile and drone attacks.
US President Donald Trump has not given a reason for the sudden cessation in air strikes on Iran, but a senior administration official told the Reuters news agency that Trump “has always been clear that his preference is diplomacy, but he has shown Iran what will happen if they fail to come to the table in a serious way”.
Trump said on Friday that there was still some communication with Iran.
“They are talking to us right now; they’d love to make a deal,” he said. “I don’t think they’re ready to … but I’m willing to listen.”
Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from Tehran, said Iranian officials had confirmed the two sides were exchanging messages.
“There have been proposals conveyed by the mediators, and Tehran is still reviewing them,” Serdar said, adding there was “not much progress yet” due to “fundamental differences” in their positions and deep mistrust.
Islamabad, Pakistan – A wooden panelled bookshelf behind him, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the United States and Iran, aimed at extending their ceasefire by creating a pathway towards long-term peace.
Sharif then held up the document for the cameras. That was June 17, the high point of a frenzied diplomatic effort led by Pakistan spanning weeks, which had culminated in the MoU that Sharif signed as a mediator.
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Yet less than four weeks later, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has, in just the past few days, issued two statements expressing “deep concern” over renewed US-Iran hostilities, with the MoU Islamabad had helped pull together seemingly in shreds.
On Monday morning, the US launched the latest in a series of attacks on Iran, which responded by firing missiles and drones at multiple Gulf and Arab nations that it blamed for hosting US military bases.
Hours later, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters that mediators, including Pakistan, Qatar and Oman, remained engaged and were continuing their efforts, even as he warned that Iran would continue responding to what it viewed as US non-compliance with the MoU.
So far, those efforts have failed to slow down the fighting, even as Pakistan has pressed on with diplomatic outreach.
On Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar spoke by phone with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, telling him that dialogue and diplomacy remained “the only viable path” to resolving the crisis.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also spoke to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Friday, warning that “hard-earned” peace gains were at risk, while Dar held a separate call on Saturday with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.
To many analysts, one question, above all, now stares at Pakistan and other mediators like Qatar: With the deep distrust between the US and Iran only further expanding following the new bout of fighting, can Islamabad or any other capital once again bring Washington and Tehran back to the negotiating table?
Repeated breakdowns
The renewed fighting marks at least the third occasion since the US-Iran ceasefire signed on April 8 appeared to have collapsed.
Days after that truce was agreed on, the breakdown of the first round of Islamabad talks led to the US imposing a naval blockade on Iranian ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The US and Iran both attacked ships in the days that followed.
Then, after the MoU was signed on June 17, Iran attacked several ships that it claimed were passing through the Strait of Hormuz without its permission, prompting another escalation with Washington.
But the Iranian tanker strikes last week appear to have raised tensions to new heights.
US attacks on Iran since then have hit at least 10 provinces, killing a soldier, several fishermen in the southern province of Hormozgan, and a firefighter in Sistan and Baluchestan, according to Iranian authorities.
A railway bridge on a trade corridor linking Iran with Central Asia and China was also struck, along with a bridge near Mashhad used by mourners travelling to former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral.
The renewed hostilities have also pulled Qatar, a fellow mediator alongside Pakistan, more directly into the conflict. On Sunday, Iranian missiles and drones hit the Gulf state, with debris from interceptions injuring three people, including a child, according to Qatar’s Ministry of Interior.
Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has accused Washington of violating “nearly all parts” of the June agreement within 25 days of its signing, citing attacks on transport infrastructure and fishing vessels.
Baghaei said on Monday that Iran had “acted in good faith” throughout, but that “each time the other party has failed to meet its obligations, we did not uphold ours, and we will continue to act in this manner.”
Since the war began on February 28, Islamabad has played the role of mediator.
It hosted talks in April, the first time in four decades that US and Iranian officials sat in a room together.
Its army chief and interior minister have travelled to Tehran several times. In late March, Pakistan also helped secure a Chinese-backed peace framework alongside its own diplomatic efforts.
In June, it helped produce the MoU signed by Pezeshkian and US President Donald Trump, along with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, which was then discussed at the Burgenstock summit in Switzerland.
Yet analysts say Pakistan lacks the means to enforce the agreements it helps broker.
Javad Heiran-Nia, director of the Persian Gulf Studies Group at the Center for Scientific Research and Middle East Strategic Studies in Tehran, said the MoU was never intended to resolve the underlying dispute.
“The MoU deferred key and substantive issues to future negotiations and functioned primarily as a tactical instrument to halt hostilities and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping,” he told Al Jazeera.
Iran, he said, sees control of the waterway as “a strategic asset; not merely a coercive lever, but a deterrent tool”, and appears “prepared to accept the risk of war to preserve this strategic advantage”.
Mediators, he added, lack the instruments to resolve the dispute “unless a shift in the balance of power between Iran and the United States emerges as a result of limited military engagements”, pointing to a potential US naval blockade as one of the few developments that could alter the strategic calculus.
Dania Thafer, executive director of the Gulf International Forum in Doha, said Pakistan’s room for manoeuvre had narrowed as both sides hardened their positions over the strait.
“Pakistan is in a situation where it is highly dependent on both parties, as it always has been, but right now, Iran is bent on establishing its control over the Strait of Hormuz,” she told Al Jazeera.
According to Thafer, there is little Pakistan can do to de-escalate while both Washington and Tehran remain in “an escalatory phase”.
“Once they feel they have reached a point where the balance tips in favour of one side or the other, then perhaps they will return to the negotiating table,” she added.
But Qamar Cheema, head of the Islamabad-based Sanober Institute, pushed back on the idea that Pakistan is operating without real tools.
He pointed to US Vice President JD Vance’s recent remarks, where he credited Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir’s role in the process, as evidence that Islamabad’s military-diplomatic channel carries real weight in Washington.
Access itself, he argued, is the instrument.
“Pakistan enjoys trust, and that’s why both sides pick up the phone and call Pakistani leadership any time to remove a stumbling block,” Cheema told Al Jazeera.
Crowded diplomacy, narrowing options
But Pakistan has not been the only diplomatic channel, and according to Heiran-Nia, the dispute over the strait was never really Islamabad’s to mediate.
“Iran had previously removed the Strait of Hormuz issue from Pakistan’s mediation agenda, as the matter was essentially bilateral between Tehran and Muscat,” he said.
Tehran, he explained, did not want the issue to be “defined within a broader negotiation package under Pakistani auspices, which would have afforded Washington room for political manoeuvre”.
Direct Iran-Oman talks followed, but “US military pressure and economic sanctions threats against Oman have placed Muscat under considerable strain, preventing meaningful progress,” according to the Tehran-based analyst.
Meanwhile, he cautioned that Sunday’s attacks on Qatar “could have adverse effects on Qatar’s mediatory role”, although Doha “does not currently appear inclined to withdraw”, adding that “Iran should not assume that Doha’s patience is limitless.”
Mustafa Hyder Sayed, executive director of the Pakistan-China Institute in Islamabad, described the GCC states as caught in an uncomfortable position.
“The GCC countries are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. They want a functional relationship with Iran while not openly declining the use of their bases and territory by the United States, because they understand they cannot choose their neighbours,” he told Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, Israel, which is not a party to the MoU, has continued military operations in Lebanon, which Tehran cites as an ongoing violation of the agreement.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday that southern Lebanon “would become Gaza”, raising the prospect of further regional escalation.
Who blinks first?
Despite a week of escalating attacks, the core dispute remains unchanged.
Pakistani army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir meets the president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, June 23, 2026 [Handout/Inter-Services Public Relations via Reuters]
Washington and Tehran remain divided over the same issue that stalled negotiations even before the latest round of fighting: Who controls passage through the Strait of Hormuz, and under what conditions?
Iran insists the MoU gave it authority over transit through the waterway. The US disputes that.
On Monday, Trump announced that the US was reinstating a naval blockade of Iranian ships and would charge a 20 percent tariff on all other ships trying to pass through the strait.
Yet, earlier, a possible compromise had briefly emerged.
Heiran-Nia said the parties explored a formula under which commercial vessels would coordinate passage with both Iran and a designated Arab Gulf state, allowing “both parties [to] claim a degree of victory”.
The talks stalled before reaching a conclusion, however, interrupted by the funeral of Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war in joint US-Israeli air strikes.
The conflict has since moved in the opposite direction, with military action aimed at shifting the balance of power rather than reviving negotiations.
“The prevailing trajectory now is the continuation of military strikes in an effort to shift the balance of power. Yet, there remains a risk that strategic calculations on either side could spiral beyond control,” Heiran-Nia said.
Thafer believes that, despite the violence, neither side has formally abandoned the MoU.
“Iran is framing this current round of escalation as a violation of the MoU rather than a reason to exit it, which means there could still be light at the end of the tunnel,” she said.
In her assessment, both sides bear responsibility for violating the agreement, from Iran’s attacks on shipping to Washington’s revocation of Iran’s oil sale licence and the military attacks. Yet the agreement remains, at least formally, in place.
Its future, she said, depends on which side ultimately gives ground over the strait. Iran retains what Thafer described as a “snapback capability” to disrupt shipping whenever it chooses.
“It is, militarily, very difficult to fully neutralise that Iranian capability. We will have to wait and see where the leverage finally sits,” she said.
Cheema, for his part, argued that Iran’s own conduct, more than any mediator’s diplomacy, is what will decide how this settles.
“Iranian authorities seem ambitious and aggressive, and are looking to take risks to project power, which makes it less likely that any agreement will reach a final conclusion. That means interventions from mediators will keep coming.”
Regional mediators are stepping up efforts to prevent further escalation between Iran and the US. Qatar held talks in Tehran, while Oman is proposing a plan to manage shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar explains.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) the United States and Iran have signed is not a peace treaty. It is not even a credible framework for one. A vocal chorus of critics has rushed to portray it as a humiliation – evidence that President Donald Trump was manoeuvred into negotiations and extracted a poor deal from a regime that outplayed him.
That reading mistakes a mirage for reality. The Trump administration entered these talks with a precise understanding of what the Iranian regime is, what it wants and what any agreement with it is actually worth. No one in that negotiating team harbours the illusion that Tehran intends to honour commitments that constrain its core ambitions. The MоU is not a peace settlement. It is a mutually understood pause – a tactical intermission chosen by both sides for reasons that have nothing to do with trust and everything to do with time.
To grasp why, one needs only consult Iran’s unbroken record. That record is not a matter of interpretation or political dispute. It is a documented history of agreements made, commitments given and obligations systematically abandoned whenever honouring them conflicted with the regime’s objectives.
The pattern is consistent enough to constitute a doctrine: Iran negotiates under pressure, signs what is necessary to relieve that pressure and resumes its course once the immediate threat has passed.
The deeply flawed 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was the most prominent recent demonstration of this cycle. Presented as a landmark of multilateral diplomacy, it was in practice a subsidised intermission – a breathing space Iran used to consolidate resources, sustain its proxy networks and continue advancing its strategic programme. The JCPOA did not change Iranian behaviour. It funded and protected it.
The Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign was a direct response to that lesson: A regime of this kind cannot be managed through diplomatic lifelines. It can only be constrained by pressure severe enough to leave it no viable alternative to compliance.
The new MoU does not signal that Iran has changed. Its calculus remains what it has always been – survival and expansion, pursued through whatever tactical posture the moment requires. When pressure mounts, Iran negotiates. When pressure eases, Iran advances. Its negotiators are, by all available evidence, prepared to offer assurances they have no intention of keeping. This is not a failure of diplomatic craftsmanship. This is simply the nature of any negotiation with a regime like Iran’s.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Iranian nuclear programme. As a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has repeatedly committed to transparent cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. It has repeatedly broken those commitments, blocking inspections, constructing clandestine enrichment facilities, destroying evidence and systematically deceiving the international community. The pattern is not one of occasional noncompliance. It is deliberate, sustained deception in pursuit of a single unwavering objective: the acquisition of a nuclear weapon.
A state genuinely committed to civilian nuclear energy has no need for a vast and enormously expensive domestic enrichment programme. Nuclear fuel can be purchased – from Russia, among others – at a fraction of the cost and without the international confrontation such a programme inevitably provokes.
Iran has chosen the far more costly and dangerous path for one reason: Enrichment is not a means to an end, but the end itself. Its rulers are committed to a nuclear weapon, and that commitment has survived changes in personnel, shifts in rhetoric and decades of pressure.
It will not be bargained away – and here lies the critical point that no amount of diplomatic optimism can paper over. Iran’s rulers are not pragmatic actors engaged in a conventional cost-benefit calculation. Their goals are theological and strategic in a way that places them beyond the reach of ordinary negotiation.
They do not govern in the interests of the Iranian people. The sanctions they have endured have devastated ordinary Iranians – driven up poverty, hollowed out the middle class, denied the population access to medicines and opportunity. None of that has moved the regime one degree from its course.
This is a regime that could, if it chose, transform its position entirely. It could make peace with its neighbours, normalise relations with the international community, shed the sanctions that have devastated its economy and dramatically improve the lives of Iranians. The price is not beyond reach: abandon the nuclear weapons programme, cease development of offensive ballistic missiles and end the sponsorship of terrorist proxies. Iran’s rulers have refused that bargain consistently and completely.
That is the essential context for understanding what the Trump administration is actually doing. It would be a serious misjudgement to read this MoU as evidence of American weakness or strategic confusion. The team that designed and executed the most effective pressure campaign against Iran in recent memory is not naive about this adversary.
Trump enters this pause knowing that Iran will not honour commitments that genuinely constrain it. He is not expecting otherwise. Neither side, in all likelihood, operates under any such illusion – which is precisely what makes the critics’ alarm about a “bad deal” somewhat beside the point.
You cannot be cheated by an agreement you never expected the other party to keep.
What this MoU represents is a mutually understood strategic pause, a breathing space both parties have chosen, for entirely different reasons, over immediate confrontation. Iran needs economic relief. A regime facing internal decay and a depleted treasury has strong incentives to buy time, replenish its resources and wait out what it calculates to be a finite window.
Tehran is acutely aware that Trump has roughly two and a half years remaining in office. From its perspective, survival through that period is itself a form of victory.
Washington’s calculus is different in kind. Keeping the Strait of Hormuz open is an immediate, non-negotiable goal – a choked strait means an energy price shock with global consequences. Beyond that, the US has its own repositioning to accomplish. Military inventories drawn down through recent operations are being restocked. Strategic options are being preserved and expanded.
A pause that enables that rebuilding, while avoiding a premature confrontation on unfavourable terms, is not a concession. It is preparation.
Trump has never wavered in his commitment to eliminating Iran as a strategic threat – not through wishful diplomacy, but through the kind of pressure that forecloses options. That commitment did not expire with the signing of this MoU. The question for Tehran is not whether American resolve exists but whether it can be outlasted. That is a wager the Iranian regime has made before and lost.
The international community will, as usual, observe from a careful distance. Many nations will urge Iran to be stopped while taking few steps to stop it, criticising US action and inaction with equal facility.
Trump understands this dynamic. It is the foundation of his approach to alliances – the insistence that partners bear proportionate burdens rather than simply drawing on American resolve while contributing little of their own.
The MoU will not resolve the Iranian problem. It was not designed to. When its terms expire or when Iran decides it has served its purpose, the nuclear programme will resume its advance, the proxies will be better resourced, and the Strait of Hormuz will once again become a flashpoint.
That outcome is not a possibility. Given Iran’s record, it is a near-certainty. The only consequential variable is whether the US and those willing to stand alongside it will be better positioned to act decisively when that moment arrives. Far from a mirage, the evidence suggests that is precisely what this administration is working to ensure.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
Six countries – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman – form the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which was created in 1981 following fears of the perceived expansionist ambitions of the new Iranian government.
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Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Israel has attempted to isolate Iran and its wide network of regional proxy groups. But in a twist of irony, Israeli aggression in this pursuit has pushed some Gulf states closer to Tehran.
When Israel and the US launched strikes on Iran on February 28 – and Tehran responded by attacking Gulf states – they were again forced to reassess their relationship with their neighbour.
Gulf relations with Iran, at present, appear more shaped by realism than reconciliation, but this approach could help them navigate the uncertain road ahead.
“The ongoing conflict … compelled the Gulf states to pursue a more pragmatic relationship with Tehran, one that will include enhanced dialogue to deter conflict,” Farah al-Qawasmi, a researcher at the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera.
Embracing de-escalation – not Iran
All six GCC member states have welcomed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by Iran and the US last week. But this is shaped more by the Gulf states wanting the war to end rather than a newfound trust of Iran.
“An agreement between the two parties is being [highly] advocated by the Gulf states in [an] attempt to prevent and contain regional conflicts,” al-Qawasmi said.
Shortly after the US and Iran agreed in 2015 to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – putting guardrails on Tehran’s nuclear programme – Gulf states remained sceptical about their neighbour.
The current war has only heightened these suspicions, but it has also seen regional states seek diplomacy with Tehran rather than military confrontation, despite Iran directly attacking Gulf cities.
“The Gulf states still feel like diplomacy is better than using force to get a deal … to change Iran’s behaviour and to insulate them from Iran’s destabilising actions,” Rob Geist Pinfold, a lecturer on security studies at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera.
Pinfold points out that Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz via drones and missiles, not nuclear weapons, making dealing with that threat a priority for Gulf states rather than Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Gulf states will want a more comprehensive agreement between Iran and the US, rather than the nuclear-focused JCPOA, said Pinfold.
“If you talk to people in Gulf capitals, they will tell you that the nuclear programme is a tomorrow problem for them,” he said.
“The today problem is Iran’s use of drones and proxies to destabilise and undermine the sovereignty of Gulf states, but also states throughout the region.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s three-day tour of the Gulf, which ends Thursday, is seen as a way of allaying these fears and assuring the GCC that Tehran will not be strengthened by the agreement.
US Vice President JD Vance, left, looks on as Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, centre, speaks and gestures towards Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, right, at the start of a quadrilateral meeting between the US, Iran, Pakistan and Qatar [File: Nathan Howard/Pool via Getty Images]
Seat at the table
Mehran Haghirian, the director of research and programmes at the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, believes Gulf states are in a better position to guide the outcome of the current US-Iran talks than in 2015.
“They are at the heart of the negotiations,” Haghirian said regarding the Gulf states’ role in the current talks.
In its role as a co-mediator, Qatar is essentially representing the GCC and their interests during the talks, while articles five and six of the Iran-US MoU place Gulf states at the centre of the agreement.
Among the biggest concerns for the GCC are the future of the Strait of Hormuz, with Tehran demanding tolls on shipping, and calls for the creation of a regional investment fund for Iran.
“There really cannot be any new Hormuz authority by Iran that would not include other GCC countries,” Haghirian told Al Jazeera.
US Vice President JD Vance claimed last week that the investment fund would be financed by the Gulf coalition, but Rubio said this week that regional allies would not be asked to contribute to any reconstruction fund for Iran.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani has described the reported $300bn figure as “aspirational” in an interview with the Financial Times, while no Gulf state has yet said if it will contribute to the fund.
‘Maximum pressure era’
The analysts stress that the GCC is not a monolith – with Gulf states having contrasting and changing approaches towards Iran.
Oman, Qatar and Kuwait were broadly supportive of the JCPOA. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain were more sceptical, but even these states publicly backed the agreement, said Haghirian.
When Trump pulled the US out of the JCPOA in 2018, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain believed they had “found a partner in DC”.
That led to a “maximum pressure era” that brought a period of brinkmanship in the region, said Haghirian.
Suspected Iran-linked attacks on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq-Khurais oil facilities and vessels off the coast of Fujairah in 2019 were “the initial reaction by the Iranians to that maximum pressure” campaign, he added, but paradoxically, this also triggered a recalibration of relations.
“That was enough of a reason for Saudi Arabia [and] the UAE, particularly, to basically restructure their approach towards Iran,” Haghirian said.
The war and accelerated pragmatic rapprochement
While Israel has used war to attempt to increase its presence in the Gulf region – reportedly sending an Iron Dome battery to the UAE – other Gulf states view both Iran and Israel as unsettling forces in the region.
“Israel started the war, which was a destabilising act, and then Iran escalated by targeting the Gulf states, which was in turn a destabilising act,” Pinfold said.
Despite this, the Gulf states targeted by Iran still demonstrated patience and pragmatism in dealing with their neighbour.
Qatar, for example, has played a leading role in mediating between the US and Iran, even after being on the receiving end of Iranian drone and missile attacks.
“All six got attacked, and that’s really a level of foreign policy decision-making that is very difficult for any state to be able to really undertake, considering the fact that it was a military attack,” Haghirian said.
“But again, this pragmatism came out within this context to engage Iran and to actually speak for themselves at these negotiations. This war has really initiated a complete rebalancing of the entire region.”
Thousands gathered in Tehran on the eve of Ashura, the first since the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Mourners carried flags, banners and images of Khamenei as Iran prepared to commemorate one of the most significant events in the Shia calendar.
Qatar’s PM Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told Al Jazeera that safeguards have been put in place to prevent US-Iran negotiations from regional escalation, including tensions in Lebanon and the Strait of Hormuz, stressing diplomacy and respect for agreements.
US Vice President JD Vance has touted significant progress in talks with Iran over its nuclear programme and Israel’s war on Lebanon, while refusing to commit to an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory. He said Trump is trying to bring ‘permanent peace’ to a region that’s been ‘a basket case for a long time’.
Thomas Warrick, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, says the 60-day US-Iran talks face hurdles with regards to nuclear issues and sanctions, and will require time, willingness, and patience to achieve lasting results.
At the time of writing, Brent crude was down 0.91% at $79.12 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude had fallen 0.70% to $75.32 a barrel.
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Lower crude prices reflected broader investor sentiment in early trading after Qatari and Pakistani mediators said the first round of negotiations between the US and Iran aimed at securing a final agreement to end the conflict had concluded with “encouraging progress”.
A memorandum of understanding signed last week includes a commitment to reach a final agreement within 60 days, an end to fighting on “all fronts” – including in Lebanon – and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Markets mixed as analysts monitor US-Iran negotiations
Meanwhile, Asian stocks were mixed on Monday, with markets in Japan and South Korea trading higher, while US futures traded lower.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 jumped 1.6% to 72,364.82 after reaching a new all-time high of 72,831.73 during intraday trading, helped by technology stocks fuelled by enthusiasm over the global artificial intelligence boom.
Japan’s SoftBank Group, the multinational investment holding company with a strong AI focus, rose 2.4%, while chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron gained 2.3%.
South Korea’s Kospi added 0.4% to 9,084.37 and was trading near record highs, led by AI-related shares. Memory chip maker SK Hynix surged 4.7%.
“We’re seeing another strong market today,” Neil Newman, managing director and head of strategy at Astris Advisory Japan, said. He cautioned that the Japanese market was “probably getting a little stretched” from an investor’s point of view, “especially with what’s going on in the Middle East”.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1% to 23,690.86, while the Shanghai Composite Index edged 0.2% higher to 4,098.01.
The first round of US-Iran talks has ended with both sides agreeing on a roadmap towards a final deal to be reached ‘within 60 days’. Iran said the negotiations resulted in waivers for oil exports and the release of some frozen assets. The parties have also agreed to a ‘de-confliction cell’ to monitor the ceasefire in Lebanon.
US and Iranian delegations have arrived for high-level talks at a hotel in Switzerland. JD Vance, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Pakistani mediators, while Iranian officials including Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi and chief negotiator Bagher Ghalibaf met their Swiss hosts.
However, after Iran’s statement, US Central Command (Centcom) spokesperson Tim Hawkins said “traffic continues to flow”. He said US forces were “monitoring the situation to ensure this remains the case”, adding that “Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz”.
Pakistan says talks between the United States and Iran which were postponed on Friday will begin in Switzerland on Sunday, as Tehran announced it was again closing the Strait of Hormuz because of continued Israeli attacks in Lebanon.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, confirmed on Saturday that an Iranian delegation, including Parliament Speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi and other senior officials, was heading to Switzerland.
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In Washington, Vice President JD Vance confirmed that the top US negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were already in Switzerland working through technical details of anticipated negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Vance told Fox News that he expects to leave for Switzerland “sometime in the next couple of days” but acknowledged that “it’s always a delicate coordination dance.”
The planned meeting on Sunday will start technical-level negotiations towards a final US-Iran deal. That is after both sides signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) earlier in the week declaring a permanent end to “military operations on all fronts”, including in Lebanon.
The MoU stipulates that a final deal should be reached within 60 days, “extendable with mutual consent”.
Although Israel agreed to a renewed ceasefire with Hezbollah on Friday, its attacks in Lebanon continued into Saturday, killing at least 32 people, according to Lebanon’s civil defence and state media reports.
On Friday, Israeli attacks killed 83 people and wounded 141, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Saturday announced it was re-imposing restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz over Israeli “crimes” in Lebanon and what it called a US violation of commitments to establish a ceasefire.
It warned ship crews not to approach the strategic waterway, saying their security would be at risk if they do.
Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, warned that the flow of energy in the Middle East would halt so long as the US-Iran agreement “remains only on paper”.
The US military said its forces were still operating in the “general area” of the Strait of Hormuz and “remain present and vigilant” to make sure “all aspects of the agreement with Iran are adhered to”. It said 55 commercial vessels had transited the strait on Saturday and that safe passage was still “intact”.
‘Things are moving backwards’
According to Pakistan’s foreign ministry, Pakistani and Qatari mediators will join the US-Iran talks on Sunday in the Swiss mountain resort of Burgenstock.
Reporting from there, Al Jazeera’s Osama bin Javaid said there has been a flurry of behind-the-scenes diplomatic activity ahead of the formal negotiations, with Qatar’s Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, already holding meetings. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar, has been holding talks in Egypt and Pakistan’s Interior Minister, Mohsin Naqvi, travelled to Iran.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Baghaei has signalled that progress may be scarce until Iran feels the US is living up to its end of the interim deal.
In comments broadcast by Iran’s IRIB, Baghaei said Iran “must naturally be very firm and serious in demanding fulfilment of obligations” considering the US’s past “failure to honour commitments”.
Al Jazeera’s James Bays, reporting from Burgenstock, said there are indications “things are moving backwards from when the MoU was signed”, citing Israel’s continued bombardment of southern Lebanon.
“The Iranians see this as a serious breach of the MoU,” he said. “Their first sanction was by not coming here. They have now utilised their best weapon by closing the Strait of Hormuz.
“Iran believes this tactic will help get things back on track with regard to southern Lebanon,” added Bays.
The 14-point Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Iran deserves cautious support, not celebration. Its most important promise is immediate and permanent cessation of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon. That is a serious achievement if it holds. The reported US-Iran text also commits both sides to avoid threats or use of force and to respect sovereignty. But wars do not end because officials announce elegant clauses. They end when armies, proxies, navies, banks, inspectors and political leaders behave differently the next morning.
The reported Versailles signing, with President Macron nearby, gave the accord theatrical weight. The reported confirmation by Iran’s Foreign Ministry gave it visibility in Tehran. Yet the title “Islamabad” may be the most revealing symbol. It suggests that diplomacy around Iran is no longer owned by Washington and Europe alone. Pakistan, Qatar, Oman and Gulf states now matter. That is healthy. But symbolism cannot replace sequencing. A memorandum is useful only if it becomes a disciplined path toward a final settlement.
Hormuz is the pressure point
The Strait of Hormuz is the economic heart of this agreement. The International Energy Agency describes it as one of the world’s critical oil chokepoints, so restoring commercial shipping is a global necessity. The MOU’s promise of safe, toll-free passage for 60 days can calm markets, but it cannot settle maritime governance. Iran’s future talks with the Sultanate of Oman and other littoral states must produce rules on fees, inspections, de-mining, escorts and disputes. Without that, Hormuz remains a bargaining chip, not a secure passage.
The most controversial part is economic. Washington would provide waivers for Iranian oil exports, make frozen assets usable, avoid new sanctions during talks and support a reconstruction plan of at least $300 billion. This could be pragmatic statecraft or a strategic mistake. The OFAC Iran sanctions system affects banks, insurers, traders and shippers. Recent State Department sanctions show how aggressively Iranian petroleum networks had been targeted. Relief must therefore be sequenced with measurable action. If Tehran receives benefits before verification, critics will call it capitulation. If Washington delays relief after compliance, Tehran will call it bad faith.
Nuclear language cannot stay vague
Iran’s renewed pledge not to build nuclear weapons is necessary, but not enough. The decisive issue is the future of enriched material, enrichment activity and inspection access. Any final deal must put IAEA Iran monitoring at the centre. The IAEA’s NPT safeguards framework and the Non-Proliferation Treaty offer the right balance: Iran has civilian nuclear rights, but the world has a right to credible assurance that military pathways are closed. Down-blending enriched material under inspection may be a start. It cannot be the finish line.
Including Lebanon in the ceasefire is wise, but risky. The promise to protect sovereignty echoes the UN Charter. But Lebanon has long suffered from the gap between formal sovereignty and armed reality. If Hezbollah, Israel, Iran or any other actor treats Lebanon as a loophole, the ceasefire will collapse at its weakest seam. The final text must clarify what “all fronts” means, how non-state armed groups are restrained, and what happens if a party violates the ceasefire through an ally.
The final agreement must be public and enforceable
The Islamabad MOU is not peace. It is a pause with possibilities. It should be supported because war has already proved disastrous, but it must be judged by performance: ceasefire maintained, Hormuz reopened, sanctions relief sequenced, nuclear material verified, Lebanon protected and the final deal anchored in law. Anything less would turn a promising memorandum into another diplomatic mirage.
Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon after escalating violence threatened to derail potential peace talks regarding the ongoing war in Iran. This ceasefire was announced just before 4 p.m. Lebanon time, with a U. S. official confirming that negotiations, facilitated by the U. S. and Qatar with assistance from Iran, had led to this agreement. Both sides indicated they would uphold the ceasefire, with an Israeli official stating that Israel would remain in southern Lebanon but would not engage in conflict unless attacked.
The recent conflict included intense airstrikes that resulted in 18 deaths and injuries to 33 others in Lebanon. Four Israeli soldiers were also killed by Hezbollah. This violence could complicate U. S.-Iran negotiations, as establishing peace in Lebanon is key to a broader agreement. The recent memorandum signed by the presidents of the U. S. and Iran postponed discussions on critical issues like Iran’s nuclear program, granting parties 60 days to agree on a lasting solution or extend the current deal.
Technical talks were planned in Switzerland but were postponed, and officials from both the U. S. and Iran indicated that their respective negotiators would not be attending. Hezbollah lawmakers suggested that further discussions hinge on a complete ceasefire and urged the Lebanese government to reject any negotiations with Israel as long as hostilities continued.
The interim agreement seeks an end to military operations in various regions, including Lebanon, but Israel maintains that it is not a part of these deliberations. The fighting began when Hezbollah fired at Israel, prompting Israeli military responses, including strikes targeting Hezbollah’s positions.
Lebanon’s health ministry confirmed the heavy toll from recent airstrikes, and its President condemned Israel’s actions while emphasizing the commitment to achieve a comprehensive ceasefire. The broader conflict, which originated on February 28 with U. S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, has reportedly resulted in at least 7,000 deaths, primarily in Iran and Lebanon.
Despite the conflict’s impact on oil prices, which had risen due to concerns over regional stability, the signing of the interim deal resulted in a drop in prices as shipping through the Strait of Hormuz resumed. Under the terms of the agreement, Iran will receive economic relief and unfreezing of assets, with negotiators tasked with addressing the status of Iran’s nuclear program and establishing a reconstruction fund within the next 60 days.
In the face of criticism in the U. S., former President Trump defended the deal, arguing that the war had weakened Iran and affirming that the terms would lead to significant concessions from Iran without offering direct financial support.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has signed a US-Iran memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the war between the two countries. US President Donald Trump and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian signed on Wednesday.
