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Has the US accepted Iran’s demand to settle Hormuz first, nuclear later?

The US pauses Hormuz escorts after Pakistan-led mediation gains traction, signalling a shift towards a limited framework deal.

Aljazeera, By Abid Hussain 6 May 2026

Islamabad, Pakistan – On Monday morning, the United States Navy began escorting commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. By Tuesday afternoon, the operation had been paused.

President Donald Trump announced the reversal on Truth Social, citing the “request of Pakistan and other Countries” and “great progress” towards a “complete and final agreement” with Iran.

Earlier on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that Operation Epic Fury, the air and naval campaign launched on February 28, was “concluded”.

What Washington now sought, he said, was a “memorandum of understanding for future negotiations”.

For weeks, that is precisely what Iran has been demanding.

In proposals passed on to the US through Pakistan, Iran has in recent weeks sought multistage negotiations, with a preliminary deal aimed at ending the war, and negotiations on the White House’s demands that Tehran end its nuclear programme pushed for later.

Trump and his administration resisted, with the US president insisting that getting Iran to give up its nuclear programme was central to any deal with Tehran.

Now, the US appears to have come around to accepting Iran’s demand, say experts. On Wednesday, the Reuters news agency and the US publication Axios reported that the US and Iran were close to agreeing to a one-page MoU to end the war, even though there have been no detailed negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Seyed Mojtaba Jalalzadeh, an international relations analyst based in Tehran, said the week’s diplomatic signals reflected a sober reassessment in Washington of what was achievable.

“Moving towards a memorandum of understanding, a framework for future talks, is a good, viable and important first step to solve the immediate problem,” he told Al Jazeera.

Shift amid fraying ceasefire

Pakistani officials close to the country’s efforts to mediate peace between the US and Iran told Al Jazeera that Islamabad’s role as an intermediary had intensified in recent days, with senior officials in direct communication with both sides. Details of those exchanges remain closely held.

On Wednesday afternoon in Islamabad, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif responded to Trump’s announcement of the pause in the operation to open the Strait of Hormuz, naming Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a partner who prodded the US president to suspend the military mission in the waterway.

Pakistan, Sharif wrote on social media, was “very hopeful that the current momentum will lead to a lasting agreement that secures durable peace and stability for the region and beyond”.

Just 24 hours earlier, that optimism would have appeared misplaced.

Since the weekend, an already fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran appeared to be fraying.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) allegedly launched missiles and drones at the United Arab Emirates on Monday and Tuesday, the first such attacks since the April 8 truce. An oil facility in Fujairah was struck, wounding three Indian workers. Iran denied involvement.

The US and Iran each claimed they had hit the other’s ships, and each denied the other’s claims of success.

Washington, however, declined to escalate. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Dan Caine said the incidents remained “all below the threshold of restarting major combat operations”. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the ceasefire “certainly holds”.

Has Washington blinked?

The central question is whether the US has, implicitly, accepted Iran’s core demand: end the war and settle the Strait of Hormuz first, with the nuclear programme to follow.

Rubio’s Tuesday briefing suggests a sharp departure from Washington’s initial position.

At the outset, the US outlined four objectives: destroy Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, dismantle its navy, sever support for armed proxies, and ensure Iran never obtained a nuclear weapon.

A 15-point proposal delivered to Tehran via Pakistan in late March went further. It called for dismantling nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, handing over highly enriched uranium to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and permanently prohibiting nuclear weapons development.

By contrast, Rubio declared the military phase over. Nuclear material, he said, “has to be addressed” and is “being addressed in the negotiation”, but he declined to elaborate.

What Washington now seeks is an MoU, a framework defining “the topics that they’ve agreed to negotiate on” and “the concessions they are willing to make at the front end”.

That marks a significant shift from March.

In early April, he warned that “a whole civilisation will die tonight” if Iran did not yield. This week, he called for an agreement to be “finalised and signed”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/6/has-the-us-accepted-irans-demand-to-settle-hormuz-first-nuclear-later

May 9, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international