Skip to content
You can now search across every topic, entity and event.What's new
European Oil Markets
31JUL

Iran's fourth ceasefire text on 1 May

3 min read
09:33UTC

Tehran handed Pakistani mediators a fourth ceasefire text on 1 May offering Hormuz reopening for an end to the US blockade, with nuclear talks deferred to a post-war phase.

EconomicDeveloping
Key takeaway

A fourth proposal restating Hormuz-first, nuclear-last sequencing reaches Washington via Islamabad.

Iran delivered a fourth ceasefire text to Pakistan on Friday 1 May; Pakistani officials confirmed forwarding it to Washington the same afternoon 1. The proposal reportedly mirrors the two-phase structure Tehran put forward on 28 April , offering Hormuz reopening and a halt to attacks on shipping in exchange for the United States lifting the Hormuz blockade and ending the war, with nuclear talks deferred to a phase that would only begin once the war is formally over.

Pakistan has been the operational back-channel for every Iranian proposal of the war, which makes its role here mechanical rather than diplomatic: Islamabad receives Tehran's text and walks it across to Washington, without amending the terms. Sequencing remains the substantive sticking point. Iran wants the blockade lifted and the war declared ended before the nuclear file is reopened; Trump's public position requires the nuclear file resolved first. The two demands cannot both be the precondition for the same conversation.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi asked Washington to drop its 'threatening rhetoric' and 'expansionist approach' after delivery. Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father as Supreme Leader in March, restated that foreign forces have no place in the Persian Gulf 'except the depths of its waters' . Both statements are maximalist openings rather than negotiating signals; the structural concession is the offer to reopen the strait at all, given the toll regime Tehran codified into domestic law in March.

The text has not been published. Whether the 1 May iteration moves on enrichment duration, monitoring architecture or sequencing, in any way the prior three did not, will not be establishable from open sources until Tehran or Washington chooses to release it. The market read of the proposal, captured in Brent's same-session move, is the next event.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Pakistan has been acting as a go-between in this conflict, carrying messages between Iran and the United States because the two countries have no direct diplomatic channel. On 1 May, Iran sent its fourth proposed ceasefire deal through Pakistan, offering to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the US ending its military blockade, with nuclear talks saved for a later phase. Both sides disagreed on the order of steps. Iran wants the Hormuz situation resolved first, then nuclear talks. The US wants nuclear commitments first, then Hormuz. Both sides are using the other issue as leverage, which is why the fourth proposal (like the first three) did not lead to a deal.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

Pakistan's mediating role rests on a structural constraint: it is the only channel with civilian and IRGC buy-in on the Iranian side. Araghchi speaks for Pezeshkian's civilian government; Mojtaba Khamenei speaks for the IRGC-backed Supreme Leader office.

When both restate maximum positions after delivery of the fourth text, it signals that the document's submission does not represent a unified Iranian position, and that Pakistan is forwarding a proposal whose internal contradictions have not been resolved.

The Hormuz-last demand from Washington traces to Rubio's public framing in late April: the US will not allow Hormuz reopening to remove Iran's primary negotiating leverage before the nuclear question is resolved.

Iran's sequential demand inverts this: Tehran will not allow the nuclear programme (described by Mojtaba as a national asset that '90 million Iranians will protect') to be addressed while the country is under active military blockade. Each side's sequencing demand is a leverage-preservation mechanism, not a genuine procedural preference.

What could happen next?
  • Consequence

    With four consecutive ceasefire failures following the same sequencing structure, the probability of a breakthrough before the 11 May Murkowski AUMF deadline is low absent a new mediating framework or changed battlefield conditions.

  • Risk

    Pakistan's continued forwarding of proposals both sides reject publicly risks reducing Islamabad's credibility as a neutral channel, making subsequent rounds harder to construct on the same framework.

First Reported In

Update #86 · Trump signs paper. The paper ends the war.

Al Jazeera· 2 May 2026
Read original
Different Perspectives
Sanctions compliance officer reviewing a Lukoil International GmbH bid
Sanctions compliance officer reviewing a Lukoil International GmbH bid
OFAC's amended FAQ 1224 gives a compliance desk its first published standard: full severance from Lukoil and a US-jurisdiction blocked account for sale proceeds. The conditions name neither ISAB nor Italy, so a Priolo Gargallo-linked bid answers a different question than a Neftochim Burgas or Petrotel Ploiesti one.
Managed-money funds on Brent Last Day
Managed-money funds on Brent Last Day
CFTC data for the week to 21 July showed managed money flipping 74,400 contracts to a net long of 15,665 against 1,410 short on the Brent Last Day contract, code 06765T. A fund that held that short through July has now covered it, and the spent short base raises the bar for the next leg higher.
Saudi crude exporters
Saudi crude exporters
Saudi-linked tanker transits through Bab el-Mandeb fell to about 7.5 a day after the 24 July underwriting withdrawal, pushing more barrels onto the longer route round the Cape or through the Yanbu terminal. Every diverted barrel ties up a ship for longer, and a fleet that turns slower charges more.
Tanker owners on the Bab el-Mandeb route
Tanker owners on the Bab el-Mandeb route
Lloyd's-market syndicates withdrew war-risk cover from Saudi-linked hulls on 24 July, leaving owners of that class of vessel to sail Bab el-Mandeb uninsured or not at all. Tanker transits on the route fell to roughly 7.5 a day, and cover, once withdrawn, does not return on a shipowner's timetable.
Eni
Eni
Eni's board approved second-quarter results on 29 July, swinging refining EBIT to a EUR0.08bn profit from a year-earlier loss even as group profit doubled, and named Red Sea freight cost as a cap on that improvement. A refiner absorbing higher shipping costs on Saudi-linked crude while its numbers improve treats the freight line as a drag, not a crisis.
Asian buyers (India, Japan, China, South Korea)
Asian buyers (India, Japan, China, South Korea)
Asian refiners are absorbing 62% of Yanbu's 3.75m b/d flow, the bulk of Saudi Arabia's rerouted crude now clearing east rather than into the Atlantic basin. That destination split leaves Asian buyers more exposed to any single Yanbu-specific disruption than under the kingdom's normal multi-terminal export pattern.