Donald Trump circulated a draft peace agreement on the Iran war among allies including Israel as he weighed whether to back a deal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, lift the US blockade of Iranian ports and give Tehran access to as much as $12bn in frozen assets. Trump said on Wednesday he needed a few more days to think about it, even as fighting and maritime pressure intensified on Thursday.
Tehran targeted a US airbase in Kuwait on Thursday after Washington struck what it described as an Iranian drone operation near the strait of Hormuz, a flashpoint that has become central to the draft and to the wider iran us track. Oil prices climbed 2% on Thursday morning but remained below $100 a barrel, a sign that markets were still betting on a managed crisis rather than a full rupture.
The draft would aim to bring commercial shipping in the strait back to pre-war levels within 30 days and open negotiations lasting as long as 60 days, beginning with Iran’s nuclear programme. Those talks would cover Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, a time-limited suspension of further enrichment and supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran would also renounce the use of nuclear weapons under the proposal.
Pakistan’s foreign minister, Mohammad Ishaq Dar, is scheduled to fly to Washington on Friday to meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, underscoring how much of the diplomacy is still moving through third parties. Indirect contact between Washington and Tehran has continued to be mediated by Pakistan and Qatar, while China is pressing for the UN Security Council to ratify any agreement.
That broad outline still leaves the hardest disputes unresolved. The draft is less specific than Tehran’s version on lifting sanctions on Iran’s oil and petrochemical exports, and it asserts toll-free navigation in the strait even as Iran is trying to negotiate a separate arrangement with Oman that would create fees for navigational services. Trump said on Wednesday he would “blow up” Oman if it tried to strike a deal with Tehran that imposed tolls.
On the waterway itself, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps navy said 26 commercial ships and oil tankers had been given permission to pass through in the past 24 hours. The IRGC said seeking permission is mandatory and that passage through other routes will be considered as disruption. It added that on Wednesday night it intervened to stop four ships trying to sail through the strait with their transponders off, forcing two to halt in place and two to turn back.
The ceasefire agreed on 8 April is now hanging on the same pressure points the draft is trying to manage. If tanker operators increase attempts to pass without Iranian permission, that fragile truce could collapse. For Israel, the current text is likely to look too loose because it defers firm Iranian nuclear commitments and links any durable settlement to a broader ceasefire that includes Lebanon.
In Moscow, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Ali Bagheri, repeated the demand that frozen assets be released into Iranian bank accounts, keeping the money issue squarely on the table ahead of the Washington visit. The immediate question is not whether a deal exists in outline; it is whether the parties can make the Strait of Hormuz safe enough, and the nuclear concessions concrete enough, before the next round of escalation turns the draft into scrap.
