High-wire diplomacy delivered US-Iran deal but hardest stage lies ahead, sources say

By Saad Sayeed, Andrew Mills, Ariba Shahid and Olivia Le Poidevin

ISLAMABAD, June 18 (Reuters) – Pakistani mediators spent weeks juggling late-night calls and competing drafts before a Qatari push helped secure this week’s preliminary U.S.-Iran deal, but turning it into a permanent agreement will prove harder, sources said.

The two sides now have 60 days of negotiations to reach a final settlement that covers complex subjects including Iran’s nuclear programme. Four Pakistani sources familiar with the talks said that just to get to the interim deal, they hit countless roadblocks that often shifted within days, ranging from proposed tolls in the Strait of Hormuz to the war in Lebanon.

Finally, in the early hours of Monday, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced a 14-point memorandum aimed at ending the war and competing blockades of the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas normally flows.

“There were many moments during the negotiations when it looked as if the process would grind to a halt,” Sharif told parliament later on Monday.

Five Pakistani sources, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, said the announcement came after talks nearly collapsed several times, including on the final night. Two of those sources and a diplomat briefed on the negotiations said securing the framework deal required Qatar to step in.

Disagreements sometimes came down to single words, such as a 45-minute debate in late May on whether the text should use “etc.” or “including”, the diplomat said, without describing which clause the debate referred to.

Achieving a final settlement on issues including sanctions relief and management of the strait as well as restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programme – all while Washington and Tehran distrust each other’s intentions – could prove even more challenging, sources and analysts said.

“Washington and Tehran appear to have different interpretations of the same text,” said Alex Vatanka of the Middle East Institute in Washington.

“Iran will try to turn ambiguity into leverage, while the U.S. will try to preserve pressure until nuclear concessions are secured. Mediation will therefore remain central, but difficult.”

Pakistan and Qatar’s foreign ministries and Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House also did not respond.

QATAR STEPS IN

Soon after the first round of talks in early April, the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz became one of the sharpest disputes, while at the end of May a call by U.S. President Donald Trump for Iran and Pakistan to join the Abraham Accords and normalise relations with Israel also disrupted negotiations, four of the Pakistani sources said.

One of the sources said the arrival of a Qatari delegation in Tehran at the same time as a Pakistani team in early June was a key moment, as Doha was able to provide financial assurances to the Iranian leadership.

Doha had been reluctant to formally enter the process, the diplomat said, but that changed in mid-May after talks had stalled for about 10 days and military escalation seemed increasingly likely.

Qatar agreed to become more directly involved only if a ceasefire held and it was not attacked, the diplomat said. Its team then made five discreet trips to Tehran, often via Turkey, to work through gaps in Pakistani drafts.

On May 19, after leaving Tehran with what they believed was a positive opening, the Qatari team flew to Washington, met senior U.S. officials and made edits to the text while calling Iranian counterparts from inside the White House, the source said.

One of the Pakistani sources, who was involved in the negotiations, said the final night showed how perilous the process remained up to the end.

By around 11 p.m. on Sunday in Pakistan, with officials gathered at the prime minister’s house and in a situation room, the talks were again falling apart after Israel attacked Lebanon, the source said.

“Things were very fluid,” the source said, adding that army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir passed messages between the two sides through the night. Hours later, the agreement came through.

SHIFTING STATEMENTS, DELAYS IN MESSAGING

Four of the Pakistani sources said Trump’s shifting public statements repeatedly complicated the effort, as did Iran’s slow responses to urgent proposals. They said the delays stemmed partly from Iran’s decision-making becoming unusually fragmented after U.S. attacks weakened its leadership structure.

An international source familiar with the negotiations said the Iranians were very careful about information security. “Messages get passed through many hands, and then come back days later,” they said.

The Pakistani source involved in the negotiations said things improved after a representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei came to Islamabad, allowing Munir and his team to “get more direct communications running.”

The international source said Pakistan grew frustrated with the differing communication styles. “With the Americans, you never really knew what their position was, and it could change. And with the Iranians, you often didn’t get a clear answer for days and days,” the source said.

Both countries have now signed the interim agreement, but the process remains fragile, particularly because Israeli strikes in Lebanon and a response by Hezbollah could unravel the deal, said the diplomat.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been close to a process which involves less trust than this one,” said the international source.

(Reporting by Saad Sayeed in Islamabad, Andrew Mills in Doha, Ariba Shahid in Karachi and Olivia Le Poidevin in Geneva; Additional reporting by Mubasher Bukhari in Lahore and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Editing by Aidan Lewis)