On Sunday 24 May, Iran told mediators it wants $12bn in Iranian assets frozen in Qatar released before any reopening of the Strait of Hormuz or steps on its nuclear programme, relayed via Iran International citing the IRGC-aligned outlet Tasnim1. Tehran said it would not let asset release be handed to "vague and illusory promises." Washington's counter runs the other way: the cash unfreezes only after Hormuz reopens.
This one clause blocks an agreement whose broad principles both sides say are settled. Donald Trump had cast the deal as all but done, and accounts of its terms had varied between the parties; the $12bn demand is the concrete obstacle those optimistic readings had glossed over. Iran's Foreign Ministry put it plainly through spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei: the two sides had reached agreement on "a large portion of the issues," but "an agreement is not imminent"2.
Tehran and Washington divide over the order of operations rather than the principle. Since the US left the 2015 nuclear deal in 2018, Tehran has treated American commitments as reversible, so it will not surrender an operational lever like the strait before the money lands. Washington will not release $12bn it cannot claw back before seeing a concession it can verify. Each side asks the other to move first.
That is the same failure mode that stalled arms-control talks through the 1980s: agreement on the ends, deadlock on the verifiable order of concessions. It also explains how a deal can be described as close and stuck at once. The futures market is pricing the sequence resolving soon; the posture on the ground has not changed. The demand itself is sourced to Iranian state-adjacent media, so the precise figure carries Tehran's framing, though US-official accounts corroborate that a sequencing gap is what remains.
