Iran on Thursday said it was formally reviewing the latest U.S. proposal to end the two-month war, as President Masoud Pezeshkian disclosed a two-and-a-half-hour meeting with Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and Tehran stood up a new agency to vet shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The developments followed Trump's Tuesday-night pause of Project Freedom, the U.S. Navy escort operation, in favor of Pakistan-brokered talks.
Thursday's moves knit the diplomatic, political and maritime tracks of a conflict that began Feb. 28 and has held under a fragile ceasefire since April 8. Tehran's engagement with the text, paired with Pezeshkian's audience with the new supreme leader, answers Trump administration claims that Iran's leadership is too fractured to deliver. The Hormuz agency, in turn, codifies the chokehold Iran has used as leverage.
What is on the table
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told state TV on Wednesday that Tehran was still examining the proposal, the AP reported. Baghaei said Iran had "strongly rejected" earlier provisions described by Axios that included a moratorium on uranium enrichment, the lifting of U.S. sanctions, the release of frozen Iranian funds and the reopening of the strait.
PBS NewsHour's Nick Schifrin, citing Iranian, regional and European officials, reported that the proposed memorandum of understanding would move in two phases. The first would lift Iran's chokehold on the strait and the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, with all parties, including Hezbollah and Israel, declaring an end to the war. The second would freeze Iran's uranium enrichment, with the U.S. seeking a 20-year term and Iran countering with five years plus a possible five-year extension. Iran would export its roughly 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium and grant the International Atomic Energy Agency access to its sites.
Trump told PBS News on Wednesday the talks had "a very good chance of ending," warning that "if it doesn't end, we have to go back to bombing the hell out of them."
Pezeshkian and Khamenei
Pezeshkian's announcement appears to mark his first audience with Mojtaba Khamenei since Khamenei's selection as supreme leader two months ago, after the Feb. 28 strike that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The president said the meeting produced "trust, calm, solidarity, and direct, unmediated dialogue," according to state media cited by Al Jazeera.
The sit-down followed reports by London-based Iran International, citing unnamed sources, that Pezeshkian had clashed with Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders over wartime operations and considered resigning. His chief of staff and communications deputy told the ISNA news agency the resignation and rift claims are "fake news."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters at the White House on Monday that "The time has come for Iran to make the sensible choice," and said Iranian leaders had "a fracture in their own leadership system."
A new toll booth on Hormuz
Shipping data firm Lloyd's List Intelligence said Thursday that Iran has established the Persian Gulf Strait Authority to approve transit and collect tolls in the strait, which Iran has effectively closed to most traffic. The agency is "positioning itself as the only valid authority to grant permission to ships transiting the strait," Lloyd's said in an online briefing reported by the AP. Maritime law experts cited by the AP said Iran's vetting and tolling demands violate the U.N. Law of the Sea treaty's peaceful-passage provisions.
U.S. Central Command said a U.S. fighter jet on Wednesday shot out the rudder of an Iranian oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman as it tried to breach the American blockade. Brent crude stabilized near $100 a barrel Thursday.
The skeptics
A senior European official with long experience on Iran told PBS NewsHour the official was "very doubtful" the two sides could reach a deal or that Iran would honor it. Today's Iran reporting concentrates in center and lean-left wires; right-of-center outlets like Bloomberg, the Financial Times and The Economist track the oil-and-shipping fallout rather than the diplomatic text.
The two sides have given themselves about 30 days to negotiate the framework, Schifrin reported. Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said Thursday, "We expect an agreement sooner rather than later," while declining to set a timeline.