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.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listEarlier 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, …
