What the Iran war ceasefire deal means depends on who you ask

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President Donald Trump announced a short ceasefire in the Iran war, but public accounts from Washington and Tehran soon diverged on what the pause permits—particularly regarding shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s nuclear enrichment, and whether the arrangement could extend to Israel’s fighting in Lebanon. Iran accused the Trump administration of “major violations” after the deal was announced, putting negotiations for a longer-term peace in jeopardy, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

The strait has become the most immediate flash point. Trump posted that the ceasefire was subject to Iran agreeing to the “COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz,” the waterway leading out of the Persian Gulf through which one-fifth of the world’s oil is transported during peacetime, according to the AP report. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth later told reporters the strait was open and that U.S. forces were “hanging around” the region.

Hours after that, Iran announced that the Strait of Hormuz was closing again in response to Israel’s strikes in Lebanon. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Iran had to reopen the waterway “immediately, quickly and safely,” and the White House continued to press the opening demand even as the dispute played out in near real time.

Even if shipping resumes, Iran indicated it can still exert leverage over movement through the strait. Iran said that traffic could resume only under the management of its military, a position that Tehran could use to argue it controls access and potentially charge fees, the AP reported. Leavitt said Trump opposes charging tolls for ships to pass through the strait.

On the nuclear file, the gap between the sides’ descriptions also appears to be stark. The AP reported that Iran said its peace plan includes Washington’s “acceptance of enrichment” of uranium for Iran’s nuclear program. That position would undermine a central Trump objective, the AP wrote, because the administration has maintained that Iran can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon.

Trump and his officials framed the enrichment issue differently. The AP reported Trump posted that a peace agreement would involve the U.S. working with Iran to “dig up” enriched uranium, which he said had been buried as a result of joint U.S.-Israeli strikes in June. The AP also said Hegseth told reporters Tehran would either “give it to us voluntarily” or the U.S. might do “something like” last summer’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Leavitt said ending all Iranian uranium enrichment remains a “red line” for Trump, and she said Tehran had indicated it would be willing to turn over enriched materials. Iran, meanwhile, continued to present its own terms as including acceptance of enrichment as part of a broader settlement.

A third major divergence is how the ceasefire relates to Israel’s attacks in Lebanon. Iran said ceasing hostilities in Lebanon—where Israel has stepped up attacks in recent weeks—would be part of larger peace negotiations, the AP report said. That messaging aligned with a statement by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who announced on X that a ceasefire between Iran and the United States would extend to Lebanon.

But Trump’s administration signaled the opposite. Leavitt said Lebanon was not part of the ceasefire, and the AP reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that the two-week suspension of strikes in Iran does not include the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Other elements of the negotiating proposals were also described in competing ways. The AP said Iran first offered a 10-point plan to halt the war on Monday, and Trump called it “not good enough.” About 90 minutes before Trump’s Tuesday night deadline to begin wide-scale U.S. attacks on Iran’s bridges and power grid, Trump announced a two-week ceasefire and described Iran’s proposal as a “workable basis on which to negotiate.”

Iran later signaled it disagreed with the U.S. framing of where the talks stood. The AP reported that Iran said negotiations with the U.S. were “unreasonable.” Leavitt said in response that Iran’s initial plan was “fundamentally unserious, unacceptable and completely discarded,” and she said it was “literally thrown in the garbage,” before Iran “acknowledged reality” and put forward a “more reasonable and entirely different” plan.

Leavitt did not provide specific details of what changed, and the AP reported U.S. officials have not publicly outlined their own terms in depth. Adding complexity, the AP said Iran has released multiple versions of 10-point proposals to guide negotiations, with versions differing slightly and sometimes appearing to depend on whether they were written in English or Farsi.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council described a set of positions it said the U.S. had committed to “in principle,” the AP reported. It said the U.S. was ready to guarantee a lasting peace and no new attacks, continue Iran’s control over the strait, accept that Iran can enrich uranium, and remove all U.S. economic and other sanctions—along with restrictions on international entities doing business with Iran and U.N. Security Council resolutions against the Tehran government.

The council’s list of alleged commitments also included ending international oversight of Iran’s nuclear program, compensating Iran for war damages, a ceasefire extending to Lebanon, and a withdrawal of all U.S. combat forces from the region. The AP said that last demand would be extraordinary given decades of U.S. bases through the Persian Gulf, and it said the lifting of all sanctions also appears unlikely for the U.S.

The AP reported that U.S. officials rejected key parts of the Iranian picture. Trump rejected many of the points as “a FRAUD,” and Leavitt dismissed the plan as an “Iranian wish list.” In an online post, Trump said there was “only one group of meaningful ‘POINTS’ that are acceptable to the United States,” and that negotiations would discuss them behind closed doors.

As the two-week ceasefire plays out, the dispute over definitions—whether the strait must be opened and under whose control, whether enrichment is accepted or rolled back, and whether Lebanon is included—has left the sides describing the same framework in incompatible ways, according to the AP report.