The discussions have increasingly focused on sequencing: Iran wants the United States to lift its economic blockade before Tehran reopens the Strait of Hormuz, while Washington is seeking movement on the strait before surrendering its principal source of leverage.
Neither side appears willing to go first despite the mounting economic and political costs of the deadlock.
On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in an interview with Fox News that Tehran was willing to relinquish its stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% within the framework of international law and its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The choice of Fox News may also have reflected an effort to reach President Donald Trump and his political audience more directly, given the network’s close relationship with the president.
Pezeshkian also said Tehran hoped to revive its June ceasefire understanding with Washington before the US midterm elections in November.
“We don’t want it to get to the midterm elections,” he told reporters.
Trump has suggested the opposite timetable, saying in his UN General Assembly address that an agreement with Iran would likely be reached after the elections.
Who moves first?
Although both sides insist they seek peace, they remain divided over how an agreement would be implemented and in what order each should make concessions.
Tehran insists that no agreement can be reached before the United States lifts its economic blockade, while Washington and its European allies favour the opposite approach.
The disagreement is compounded by the collapse of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding.
From Tehran’s perspective, returning to an agreement that Washington previously failed to honour requires guarantees upfront. From Washington’s perspective, reviving the June arrangement risks appearing to reward Iran for using the Strait of Hormuz as leverage.
Supporters of diplomacy on both sides, along with mediators including Pakistan and Qatar, continue to urge the replacement of military rhetoric with political dialogue.
The problem is that each side is making a different calculation about timing and sequencing, while political considerations discourage either from moving first.
Iran’s demand that “all fronts” be addressed further complicates the equation, linking any agreement to Israel’s actions in Lebanon and elsewhere, while the widening confrontation in the Red Sea and around Bab el-Mandeb has added another layer of uncertainty to negotiations.
The midterms
The competing timetables reveal another dimension of the deadlock: both capitals have now openly linked a potential agreement to the November elections, but appear to be drawing opposite conclusions about who benefits from waiting.
It remains unclear whether Pezeshkian’s remarks will materially alter the course of negotiations. For now, each side appears to calculate that time is placing greater pressure on the other.
Trump’s threat to “annihilate Iran” raises the domestic political cost for Tehran of making concessions and increases the risk that any flexibility will be portrayed by Pezeshkian’s hardline opponents as capitulation.
Washington has political constraints of its own, with congressional hawks and influential regional lobbying groups likely to raise the political cost of concessions to Tehran ahead of the midterm elections.
The view from Tehran
The reformist daily Sharq argued on Thursday that the resumption of contacts offered an opportunity to prevent further escalation, but that significant differences between the two governments and political opposition at home made an immediate breakthrough unlikely.
“The mere continuation of mediation, or even a direct meeting between the presidents of Iran and the United States, lacks the capacity to overcome the current deadlock,” it said. “Changing this situation requires practical and reciprocal decisions from both Tehran and Washington that go beyond diplomatic messaging.”
That assessment points to the constraints facing Pezeshkian, including opposition from hardline parliamentary factions and Iran’s powerful security establishment.
For Iran’s leadership, the principal risk of an agreement is surrendering strategic leverage without guaranteed sanctions relief. For the Trump administration, moving first could expose it to accusations of appeasement ahead of the midterm elections.
The contacts in New York therefore suggest that diplomacy itself is not the missing ingredient. The harder question is whether either side is prepared to move first — and accept the political cost of doing so.