The gap is narrow with the US-Iran ceasefire agreement

Negotiators from Türkiye, Egypt and Pakistan are pushing for a meeting between the US and Iran delegation this week to discuss how to end the conflict that is shaking the Middle East and the world.

Sources said the US has sent a 15-point ceasefire proposal to Iran. The document has not been made public, but the television channel Channel 12 of Israel has announced what it believes are components of the plan with many proposals that coincide with requirements previously mentioned by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

Accordingly, the US wants a ceasefire for 30 days. Iran must destroy its nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, and commit to permanently not developing nuclear weapons. Washington also requires Tehran to hand over the enriched uranium to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), agree to let the IAEA monitor all remaining nuclear infrastructure and not continue to enrich uranium.

Iran must limit the range and number of missiles, stop supporting militia groups in the region, stop attacking energy infrastructure in the Gulf and, most importantly, reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

In return, Tehran will have all sanctions lifted, and the United Nations mechanism allowing the re-imposition of sanctions on the country will also be removed. The US pledged to support electricity production at Iran’s Bushehr civilian nuclear plant.

As for Iran, although the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has clearly stated that it does not want to negotiate with the US, Tehran still has its own conditions for peace. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on March 11 outlined the country’s terms for ending the fighting.

“The only way to end the war is to recognize Iran’s legal rights, pay compensation and have solid international guarantees against future acts of aggression,” Mr. Pezeshkian wrote on social network X.

Iran also wants to lift all sanctions it is under. Besides, Press TV, Iranian state television’s English-language media channel said Tehran is also seeking to close all US military bases in the region and establish a new legal mechanism to control traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to formalize its authority over this important maritime route.

According to experts, both sides are making maximum demands, far beyond what they discussed before the conflict, although even then, they could not find common ground. Therefore, future negotiations, if they can take place, will also be extremely difficult.

On the other hand, the risk of escalation is also near. President Trump has ordered thousands of paratroopers and marines to the area. Meanwhile, Ali Akbar Ahmadian, representative of the Supreme Leader of Iran in the National Defense Council, stated that the country’s soldiers have been trained for more than 20 years to “wait for the American soldiers to arrive”.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf warned that the country had discovered their plan to capture an island and threatened to destroy the essential infrastructure of any Arab country that supported such an action.

Fragile chance

However, analysts say there is still a narrow window for the two sides to reach an agreement. If both the US and Iran find that the costs of war are becoming too much to bear, they could sign a shortened agreement to quickly end the fighting, temporarily putting aside the most difficult issues.

“The US can continue to assert that it must achieve all its goals. But it is also possible that the two sides will agree to a more minimalist ceasefire, before proceeding with the next steps of negotiations to resolve the full agenda,” commented Michael Singh, former director of the US National Security Council on the Middle East, currently working at the Washington Institute.

One path to a ceasefire is to return to ideas the two sides floated in February’s negotiations, such as Iran stopping uranium enrichment for several years and establishing a pact not to attack countries in the region, in return for gradually lifting sanctions after restoring free traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

After the ceasefire, the two sides will continue to negotiate to find solutions to larger problems. The US believes Iran’s stockpile of 60% enriched uranium needs to be disposed of as part of the ceasefire agreement, but Tehran may want to retain that material as leverage against external pressure.

The issues of inspections, Iran’s future uranium enrichment rights and the lifting of remaining sanctions will all have to be dealt with at a later stage.

“It is very difficult to determine the position of the current Iranian leadership. What is clear is that they are interested in a ceasefire, but not at all costs,” said Raz Zimmt, director of the Iran program at the Israel Institute for National Security Studies.

Zimmt said that Iran would at least want assurances that the US or Israel would not carry out any more attacks, but everything “ultimately depends on President Trump and whether he is willing to cease fire in exchange for an agreement to reopen the strait.”

WSJ on March 26, citing sources familiar with the White House, said Mr. Trump recently told aides that he wanted to avoid a long war in Iran and hoped to end the conflict in the next few weeks.

The US President also urged his advisors to stick to the 4-6 week time limit he had outlined for the war. He hopes the fighting will end before he visits China in May.

Historically, the United States and Iran have had a precedent for promoting successful negotiations despite seemingly irreconcilable claims, by quietly shelving the most controversial points.

For example, the JCPOA nuclear agreement signed in 2015 under the Barack Obama administration created a “quiet” in the tense relationship between the US and Iran. Instead of forcing Iran to completely abandon its nuclear program, which Tehran would never accept, the Obama administration chose to freeze it permanently. Previously, the US always maintained a tough stance that Iran was not allowed to enrich uranium at any rate. However, the 2015 agreement agreed to let Iran continue to enrich uranium below a certain threshold.

And to reach an agreement, US negotiators chose to ignore other thorny issues, especially efforts to curb Iran’s ballistic missile program.

Iran has for years demanded compensation for President Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA agreement in 2018, but they agreed to shelve their demands after President Joe Biden’s administration reopened negotiations in 2021 to restore the agreement.

Iran also did not bring to the negotiating table its long-standing request that Mr. Trump be tried for ordering the killing of General Qassem Soleimani, the country’s most powerful military official, in 2020 in Iraq.

The negotiations ultimately failed, but it is clear that the temporary shelving of impossible demands helped the process proceed.

Daniel Shapiro, former US ambassador to Israel, currently a senior expert at the Atlantic Council, commented that the US is under great pressure from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to decisively resolve the military threat from Iran, especially when the war has created a new generation of leaders from the hard-line faction who are intent on retaliating in Tehran.

But Shapiro said that after weeks of conflict, the US may have to accept the reality that it cannot force Iran to surrender. “The two countries will likely come to an agreement in which each side will partially meet its demands,” he said.

According to Shapiro, the agreement may aim for the most important current goal of ending fighting and reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Issues such as plans for disposing of Iran’s nuclear material warehouse can be negotiated later. Other issues, such as Iran’s missile program or support for regional militia groups, could be left open indefinitely.

Such an agreement could bring peace, however fragile.

“Wars often end in chaos,” Shapiro said. “If the pain is great enough that you want nothing more than for everything to end, you can end up with a half-hearted compromise.”