On Sunday, President Donald Trump announced that the United States had reached a ceasefire deal with Iran, and soon after Iran confirmed that negotiators had come to terms.
But while the agreement came as a welcome reprieve to a region battered by the three-month conflict and garnered significant praise from Middle East leaders, officials in Washington and Tehran appear very much at odds over what, exactly, they agreed to. Neither nation has released the text of the memorandum of understanding that they both say they will sign in Geneva on Friday.
The rough outline appears clear: reopening the Strait of Hormuz, ending hostilities for 60 days and leaving the issue of Iran’s nuclear program for future negotiations. But many issues the two nations have grappled over remain publicly unaddressed: the fate of frozen Iranian assets, sanctions relief for Iran, the timeline for restoring commercial traffic through the strait and whether the ceasefire extends to Lebanon.
A ceasefire… but where?
The place of Lebanon in the agreement remains a critical bone of contention. Israel and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group, have been at war there for months, and neither took part in negotiating the agreement.
The U.S. has sought to bracket that conflict out of its talks with Iran as it tries to cement a separate ceasefire agreement between Israel, Hezbollah and the Lebanese government.
“Any agreement to cease hostilities must be reached directly between the two governments, brokered by the United States, and not through any separate track,” a spokesperson from the State Department wrote in a June readout, referring to Israel’s war against Hezbollah.
Iran doesn’t appear to accept that. “The Islamic Republic considered ending the war in Lebanon a requirement for ending the war with Iran from the very beginning,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Iranian state media on Tuesday. “Without the withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories they occupied during this war, the war will have not been fully brought to an end.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear Monday that he has no intention of pulling out of Lebanon, where Israeli troops have set up what he calls a “security zone.” Netanyahu also suggested that Israel was not bound by the deal between Iran and the U.S., and that Israel “will continue to thwart threats in the region,” including the Iranian nuclear program.
Iran wants pay to play
Tehran has told mediators that Washington needs to hand over $12 billion of frozen assets as soon as the deal gets signed. Tehran has said it also wants another $12 billion down the line.
It is not yet known if the U.S. will pony up, though. In 2015, the Obama administration provided billions in sanctions relief to Iran in exchange for a limited nuclear program. Trump was deeply critical of that agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and might not want to be perceived as recreating it.
The check may also be too much for the U.S. to settle alone. According to Patrick Clawson, the director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, most of the Iranian assets the U.S. has frozen are located abroad, and the U.S. would need support from other nations to move that money around.
“I think that very few of the assets that are frozen are in the United States,” Clawson told Alhurra in an interview last week. “I think the U.S. would have to persuade other countries, other governments, and that could be difficult.”
Reuters reported last week that the United Arab Emirates agreed to unlock billions of dollars to Iran. The Gulf state’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs soon after denied any such intention, calling the report “false and unfounded.”
Uncertainty in the Strait of Hormuz
To what extent will the deal unlock the Strait of Hormuz, the global chokepoint through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes? Disruptions there have caused global oil and gas prices to soar, aiding some producers but hurting consumers at the pump in the U.S. and elsewhere.
When the blockades by Iran and the U.S. are lifted, gas prices are expected to drop. But some analysts have cast doubt on Trump’s assurances that traffic through the waterway would return to normal by Friday.
Trump also claimed on Sunday that the strait will be “permanently toll-free,” but that might not be possible either. On Monday, Iran floated charging fees for ships passing through.
A spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Iran was “not seeking to levy transit tolls; however, fees will be charged in exchange for the services that are provided.”
It is not yet clear what services Iran will provide and how much they will cost.
