US President Donald Trump has said that US troops will remain deployed in the Persian Gulf to help maintain the ceasefire agreement reached among United States, Israel, and Iran following talks on April 8.
However, despite the announcement, the situation on the ground remains tense, with all sides continuing to exchange strikes, raising doubts about the durability of the truce, The Caspian Post reports via Russian news website.
Key maritime routes are also not yet operating normally. According to MarineTraffic data, only four tankers passed through the Strait of Hormuz between the evening of April 8 and 6:00 p.m. (GMT+3) on April 9, including two Iranian vessels.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh said the country is ready to ensure the reopening of the strategic waterway. However, he stressed that this would require an end to what Tehran describes as US aggression in the Middle East.
At the same time, neither side has yet presented an official list of proposals for resolving the conflict. Moreover, recent statements from President Trump and members of his administration suggest that Iran and United States do not even agree on the basic framework of negotiations. For example, in a post on his Truth Social account on April 8, Trump demanded that Iran halt uranium enrichment - a condition firmly rejected by Tehran.
In response, Iran is insisting that any agreement with Washington be formally endorsed by the UN Security Council, giving it binding international status. Tehran is also reportedly demanding not just a reduction of US military presence in the Middle East, but a full withdrawal, including the closure of American military bases across the region.
Iranian officials have further indicated they are not willing to engage in talks with Washington unless the ceasefire is expanded to include Lebanon. On April 9, this position was reiterated by Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Reinforcing this stance, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated on X that Iranians will not abandon their “brothers and sisters” in Lebanon.
A day earlier, on April 8, Ghalibaf emphasized that a bilateral ceasefire at this stage would be “inappropriate” and not feasible. Later that same day, US Vice President James Vance - who was expected to lead the American delegation in Islamabad, Pakistan - responded sharply, saying:
Vance said that he was not sure how well Ghalibaf understood English, adding that what he had said did not make sense in the context of the negotiations they had held. Vance clarified that the United States had never agreed to a framework in which the ceasefire would automatically extend to Lebanon.
On April 9, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, Moscow maintains that the agreements announced by Pakistani mediators have a regional dimension and explicitly include Lebanon.
Doubts over the viability and practical implementation of US-Iran talks in Islamabad have intensified after Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan, Reza Amiri Moghaddam, deleted a post on X announcing the arrival of the Iranian delegation. In the now-removed post, Moghaddam had stated that the sides were expected to discuss a preliminary 10-point plan for resolving the conflict.
Meanwhile, Israel has refused to suspend military operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, despite claims by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif - a mediator in the US-Iran negotiations - that the ceasefire was intended to cover the entire Middle East, including Lebanon.
According to Axios, citing multiple sources, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a series of calls with Trump and members of his team shortly before the ceasefire agreement. Following those discussions, Netanyahu reportedly received assurances that Washington would insist in upcoming talks with Iran on dismantling its missile and nuclear program, ending uranium enrichment, and transferring enriched material to a third country, a senior unnamed Israeli official said. In response, Hezbollah announced on April 9 that it was resuming hostilities against Israel.
Experts believe that United States and Iran are currently unlikely to reach an agreement on the terms for ending the conflict, Murad Sadygzade, President of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, said.
He argues that the positions of both sides remain highly polarized, with ongoing disputes over control of the Strait of Hormuz, while Israel continues to strike Iran’s allied Hezbollah forces, which the analyst describes as further evidence of regional escalation.
Sadygzade suggests that Israel is likely to eventually resume large-scale military operations against Iran. In his view, both the United States and Israel would only ease pressure on Tehran after significant weakening of the country and a potential shift toward pro-Western political forces.
He added that even during the current “peace framework,” Israeli forces continue periodic strikes on Gaza, questioning guarantees that similar actions would not be taken against Iran. He also noted that Israeli reputation has been significantly damaged internationally and argued that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government may seek to prevent any US-Iran diplomatic breakthrough.
In this context, Sadygzade described Hezbollah as being in a particularly vulnerable position. On one hand, Israel aims to eliminate what it considers a key adversary; on the other, Lebanon’s government is reportedly attempting to weaken the influence of Shiite groups within the country, the expert said.
Leading researcher at the Center for the Middle East Studies in the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations Nikolai Sukhov also agrees that the upcoming talks in Islamabad are unlikely to produce a major diplomatic breakthrough.
He described the current situation in the region as a “tactical pause” that could at any moment escalate into either controlled military confrontation or renewed mutual airstrikes.
“The demands of the parties remain maximalist and fundamentally opposed. The key point of disagreement is control over the Strait of Hormuz, and Tehran is not currently ready to accept a pre-war level of maritime operations in this route,” the expert noted.
In the current situation, Israel is taking a distinct and independent position that could become a decisive factor, Sukhov warned.
The expert highlighted that the Israeli leadership is likely to attempt to undermine any potential agreement between Washington and Tehran if it deems the terms too lenient toward Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
He also suggested that, since Lebanon is effectively excluded from the ceasefire framework, ongoing hostilities between the Israeli military and Hezbollah could ultimately derail any emerging US-Iran peace arrangement. Hezbollah initially entered the conflict in solidarity with Iran, he noted.
In the Lebanese operation, Israel is pursuing two main objectives, Sukhov explained: eliminating the threat posed by Hezbollah and creating conditions that would prevent Iran from using its regional proxies to strike Israeli territory.
However, the expert stressed that fundamental contradictions between the parties remain unresolved, turning the conflict into what he described as a “war of attrition.”
“Forecast markets estimate the probability that the ceasefire will hold until April 21 at only 26%,” he noted. “The current pause is being used by all sides more for regrouping forces than for any genuine search for compromise.”
