With missiles flying again and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral underway, President Trump has declared the ceasefire “over.” Still, the real question is whether Iran can actually afford to walk away from the table.
The fragile truce, in place since June, suffered its worst blow yet overnight. Washington accused Iran of striking three commercial tankers, including Saudi and Qatari vessels, in the Strait of Hormuz. The US responded with strikes on more than eighty Iranian targets, from radar sites to Revolutionary Guard boats near Bandar Abbas. Iran fired back at American bases in Bahrain and Kuwait, triggering air raid sirens across the Gulf for the first time in weeks.
Speaking from the NATO summit in Ankara, Trump called the ceasefire dead. Oil markets reacted immediately, with Brent crude jumping nearly six percent, a sign of how much global energy supply still depends on the Strait staying open.
Despite the escalation, the more important story may be unfolding away from the headlines: technical-level talks are still scheduled for July 11, and no one, least of all Iran has called them off. Those talks build on a fourteen-page memorandum signed June 17, which set a 60-day window to resolve three core issues: Iran’s nuclear program, sanctions relief, and billions in frozen Iranian assets held abroad. The upcoming session is also expected to address freedom of navigation through Hormuz, the very flashpoint behind this week’s strikes.
That 60-day clock is exactly why Tehran has strong incentive to keep the process alive. Iran’s economy remains squeezed by sanctions, its assets are still frozen, and each week the memorandum survives brings it closer to relief it can’t obtain through military means. Abandoning talks now would give Washington an excuse to scrap the framework just when Iran needs it most.
Iran says it will confirm its delegation’s size and makeup only after Khamenei’s funeral proceedings conclude — a delay, officials insist, not a withdrawal. Even before this latest flare-up, US and Iranian officials disagreed over whether earlier indirect talks in Doha had actually resolved anything on the frozen funds. Reconvening both sides was always going to be hard. But hard isn’t the same as optional, and Tehran seems aware of that distinction.
The choice of Islamabad as venue underscores how central Pakistan has become to keeping this process alive. Pakistan brokered the original ceasefire in April, after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir made last-minute calls to Washington before a US deadline to strike Iran expired. Trump credited the two Pakistani leaders directly for the pause, and Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, publicly thanked Islamabad for its role in ending the war.
That first Islamabad meeting in April, the first direct high-level US-Iran contact since 1979, didn’t produce a deal, but Pakistani officials kept at it. Munir made repeated trips to Tehran, while Sharif’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, kept lines open with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt. By mid-June, after what Sharif told Pakistan’s National Assembly were moments the whole effort nearly fell apart, both sides finally had a text they could sign.
This history matters for Iran’s calculations now. Tehran has spent months rebuilding ties with Muslim-majority powers, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, even while its war with the US and Israel continued. The overnight strike on a Saudi tanker threatens that goodwill, giving Iran even more reason to stay engaged rather than risk further damage to relationships it has worked hard to repair. The same patient, unglamorous diplomacy that produced the June memorandum is what’s being tested again on July 11, and whether Iran can afford to be seen walking away from its only functioning channel may matter as much as the strikes themselves.
Pakistan’s role hasn’t gone unchallenged. Sharif’s public praise of Khamenei at his funeral, calling him “a great scholar and leader”, drew criticism from Republican senators who argue Islamabad’s Tehran ties compromise its neutrality. Pakistani officials have defended their position, one that both warring sides still seem willing to accept, and one Iran, isolated and under pressure on multiple fronts, has few alternatives to.
For now, mediators in Islamabad and Doha are working to keep July 11 on track. Even while declaring the ceasefire dead, Trump added that negotiators could “keep talking if they want.” Whether that offer holds may depend less on Washington or Tehran directly, and more on whether Iran can afford to let its last working off-ramp collapse.
