play Live Sign upShow navigation menuplay Live Click here to searchsearchSign upEXPLAINERNews|US-Israel war on IranIran, US both claim victory, but did they actually concede ground?Those apparent concessions could become sticking points in upcoming talks in Islamabad.
xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogleAdd Al Jazeera on GoogleinfoDemonstrators protest against military action in Iran after US President Donald Trump said he had agreed to a two-week ceasefire, less than two hours before his deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face widespread attacks on its civilian infrastructure, outside the White House in Washington, DC, the United States, April 7, 2026 [Nathan Howard/Reuters]By Shola LawalPublished On 8 Apr 20268 Apr 2026Iran and the United States have both claimed victory in their conflict as they both accepted a two-week ceasefire just before US President Donald Trump’s apocalyptic deadline to obliterate Iranian “civilisation” if Tehran did not agree to a deal.
At least 2,076 people have died in US-Israel strikes on Iran that began on February 28, and thousands of others have been killed across the region. The war has also disrupted global energy supplies, stranding oil tankers and causing prices to shoot up in what’s being called the biggest shock to the industry in history.
Trump, in a Tuesday post on Truth Social, said the US would suspend bombing Iran after receiving a 10-point ceasefire proposal that he said was “workable”. The US president added that “almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to”.
Iran also said it will allow ships to begin to move through the Strait of Hormuz, even as some in the country have angrily denounced their government’s bowing to pressure.
Both sides are expected to continue Pakistan-mediated talks in Islamabad from Friday.
But despite the formal bluster, both the US and Iran appear to have shifted from some of their earlier stated red lines to agree to Tuesday’s deal. Those sticking points could reemerge to complicate the upcoming talks, analysts say.
Here’s what we know about what they both wanted and what concessions have been made so far:
The US agreed to suspend bombing Iran for two weeks.
“The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East…a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated,” Trump posted.
The US president did not immediately confirm if US negotiators would be in Islamabad.
“For Trump, the big achievement is to have Iran agree to negotiate after his escalating threats,” Chris Featherstone, a political scientist at the University of York, told Al Jazeera.
“He is presenting this as a success, but he will need to achieve some form of concession from Iran to be able to present this as a success in the longer term,” he said.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that Iran would also cease “defensive operations” if attacks on the country are halted, and that Iran’s armed forces would allow safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
Many in Iran, however, have expressed anger and fault Tehran for responding to a ceasefire deal, as distrust for the US has soared in the country, say analysts.
“The pessimism in Iran is probably more than in any other place because we’ve been attacked two times in the middle of negotiations,” Foad Izadi, a professor at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera.
He was referring to the US’s bombing of Iran during last June’s 12-day war alongside Israel, and the US-Israeli strikes on February 28th. Both escalations came as negotiations were ongoing.
The US had earlier, on March 25, issued a 15-point plan of demands.
It was sent to Iran through Pakistan at a time when Tehran denied any talks were happening.
The official framework was not fully published, but Iran rejected the plan and called it “excessive”.
Some of its main elements, as reported by US media, are:
Iran also proposed a 10-point plan in response to the US’s outline.
On Monday, as the war entered its 38th day, and after Trump issued threats to blow up Iran’s power and energy plants in violation of international law, the US president acknowledged that Tehran had delivered this 10-point plan to the White House via Pakistani mediators.
Trump said after its presentation that the plan was a “significant step”, but “not good enough”.
In his ceasefire announcement on Tuesday, however, Trump said that Iran’s proposal was “workable” as the basis for a final agreement.
Analysts point out the plan contains some controversial points that Washington – and Israel – will likely balk at in the course of the talks.
Iranian authorities had earlier vowed not to negotiate with the US at all, and to only end the war when Tehran was ready and assured that the US and Israel were successfully deterred from hitting the country again.
However, Iranian authorities later on yielded to pressure from Pakistani mediators — and reportedly, to pressure from China — to negotiate.
They also accepted a two-week ceasefire as opposed to an immediate and permanent cessation.
Reparations Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian had earlier, on March 11, called for the payment of reparations for the damages caused by Israel and US strikes as a basis for a ceasefire. Now, Iran’s proposal instead suggests that it is willing to use fees from ships traversing the Strait of Hormuz for reconstruction.
Iran has for several days been insisting that any ceasefire should extend to the cessation of attacks on its regional allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, while outlining the ceasefire he helped mediate, said it would cover Lebanon, too.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an address that the US-Iran agreement does not include Lebanon. Hours later, Israel launched its biggest bombing campaign of the war on Lebanon, hitting the capital, Beirut, and leaving hundreds of people dead and wounded, according to Lebanese authorities.
It is unclear whether there was consensus among the US, Iran and mediators like Pakistan on Lebanon’s place in the ceasefire agreement — and whether Israel is violating it regardless.
“That’s the specific issue that Iran will find that Israel still has veto power over,” Samir Puri of King’s College London told Al Jazeera.
But, on the other hand, “Tehran will be unlikely to let it go, as they will wish to show that they can still influence Middle Eastern power politics despite the US strikes,” Featherstone said.
So far, at least 1,530 people have been killed in Lebanon during the war.
As both sides are expected to begin what will likely be tough negotiations on Friday, analysts are speculating over what final concessions either side might be prepared to make and what issues will be non-starters.
At least one of Iran’s demands has been flagged as a no-go area for Washington: ending the US military presence in the Middle East.
The US has maintained a military presence in the region for more than 65 years. As many as 50,000 US troops are stationed across 19 sites in several countries, not including the thousands more troops called up amid the Iran war.
Iran has argued that those bases proved to be a liability for Gulf countries during the war, some analysts say, as they became targets of Tehran’s ire, as it lashed out in heavy retaliatory strikes.
Still, “these countries are all sovereign countries, they make their own decisions”, Izadi of the University of Tehran said.
“The experience our southern neighbours had with US bases was not good,” he noted. “But that particular concept [of the US leaving] is something that the independent governments in the Persian Gulf have to make for their own selves.”
