The United States and Iran recently announced a 14-point interim agreement aimed at ending the military conflict. According to the agreement, the two sides will extend the ceasefire arrangement reached on April 8 for another two months, Iran will immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and the United States will initiate a blockade of Iranian ports. The move marks a key step toward ending a conflict that has killed thousands in the Middle East.
Driven by this good geopolitical news, global stock and bond markets experienced general gains this week, while international crude oil and natural gas prices, which had soared due to the closure of the strait, fell back. U.S. President Trump praised the agreement, calling it a "great deal that will bring peace and security to the entire region."
It is understood that the document reached by the United States and Iran this time is a memorandum of understanding, which is scheduled to be officially signed in Switzerland this Friday. At present, neither party has announced the text of the agreement. According to the agreement, the United States and Iran will launch a new round of negotiations during the extension of the ceasefire, focusing on the issue of limiting Iran's uranium enrichment activities in the next 15 years or so. If a "final agreement" cannot be reached within that period, the ceasefire arrangement could be extended further. According to multiple people familiar with the matter, Qatar and Pakistan, as the main mediators in this round of conflicts, will receive the US-Iran delegation this week to finalize the final details of the agreement and plan a new round of negotiations on the Iranian nuclear issue.
Although the agreement has made phased progress, analysts pointed out that the negotiation process was extremely complicated due to the large number of technical details involved and the continued exchange of fire between the two sides in the past week, and the ceasefire was even on the verge of collapse. At present, the two sides have not yet fully reached an agreement on core disputes surrounding whether the United States agrees to unfreeze Iranian assets worth tens of billions of dollars stored in places such as Qatar, and whether Iran is willing to give up its existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
In addition, Israel has made it clear that it does not support the agreement. Since Israel did not directly participate in the negotiations, Israel is deeply uneasy about the content of the agreement. It believes that the agreement makes too many concessions without limiting Iran's ballistic missile development, and is worried that this move will force the Netanyahu government to reduce military operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon. U.S. media revealed that Israel launched an air strike on Beirut, the Lebanese capital, at noon on Sunday, which forced the signing of the agreement to be postponed. Trump later expressed strong dissatisfaction with this action in a phone call with Netanyahu. However, Israeli officials still insist that its military operations to combat Hezbollah and prevent it from attacking Israeli territory will not be restricted by any external agreement