Former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has proposed a roadmap for ending the United States-Israeli war on Iran as tensions escalate across the Middle East.
Zarif’s plan was published by Foreign Affairs magazine on Friday and goes “beyond a temporary ceasefire”.
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The war, which erupted on February 28 with US-Israeli strikes on Iran, has spread across the Middle East and convulsed the global economy as Tehran attacked its neighbours, claiming to be targeting US assets there and restricting movement of vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
Regional hostilities showed no signs of abating on Sunday, a day after US President Donald Trump said Iran had 48 hours to cut a deal or face “all hell”.
Against this backdrop, Zarif’s roadmap said that although Iran viewed itself as successful in the war, prolonging the conflict – while potentially “psychologically satisfying” for Tehran – would only result in further loss of civilian lives and destruction of infrastructure.
Iran should, therefore, offer to “place limits on its nuclear program” under international monitoring as well as “reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for an end to all sanctions”, Zarif wrote.
Since the war began, Iran has virtually blocked the key waterway, through which one-fifth of the world’s crude oil and natural gas supplies normally pass.
Nuclear limits on Iran would include a commitment to never seek nuclear weapons and to blend its entire stockpile of enriched uranium so its enrichment levels fall below 3.67 percent, Zarif said.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimates, Iran is believed to have about 440kg (970lb) of uranium enriched to 60 percent, a level at which uranium can be quickly enriched to the 90 percent threshold needed to produce a nuclear weapon.
Zarif called Trump’s demand for zero enrichment “fanciful” thinking.
Iran should also “accept a mutual nonaggression pact with the United States” in which both countries pledge to not strike each other in the future, the former minister said.
The US should also end all sanctions and United Nations Security Council resolutions against Iran, he added.
Regional consortium
Zarif also outlined potential roles for regional and international actors.
He suggested that China and Russia along with the US could help create a regional fuel-enrichment consortium with Iran and its Gulf neighbours at West Asia’s sole enrichment facility with Iran transferring all enriched material and equipment there.
Zarif additionally proposed that Gulf states, UN Security Council powers and possibly Egypt, Pakistan and Turkiye should form a regional security framework to “ensure nonaggression, cooperation and freedom of navigation”, including arrangements to guarantee safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
“To further consolidate peace, Iran and the United States should initiate mutually beneficial trade, economic and technological cooperation,” Zarif added.
The Iranian politician said this roadmap would benefit Trump, offering him a “well-timed off-ramp” and an opportunity to claim peace.
“Emotions may be high, and each side is boasting about its war-front victories. But history best remembers those who make peace,” he said.
The US has presented Iran with a 15-point plan for a ceasefire as Pakistan, Turkiye and Egypt have been trying to achieve direct talks, but there has been no signs of progress on the diplomatic front.
What about the Gulf?
Officials from Gulf states have responded to Zarif’s proposal, criticising it for overlooking Tehran’s attacks against its neighbours.
“Reading M. Javad Zarif’s article in Foreign Affairs ignores one of the core flaws in Iran’s strategy: aggression against its Gulf Arab neighbors,” Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates, said on X on Saturday.
“Thousands of missiles & drones targeting infrastructure, civilians, even mediators, is not strength; it is hubris & strategic failure. The Arab world has seen this before: destruction peddled as victory,” he added.
Former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani also responded to Zarif’s plan, writing on X on Sunday that he “agreed with much of it” and it took a “clever” approach.
Still, he pushed back, stating that the war has “led us all into a path that is more complicated and dangerous” and chiding Iran for its attacks on the Gulf.
“You may believe that you have achieved progress in some aspects, and perhaps temporary tactical gains, but the cost was clear: the loss of an important part of your friends in the region, and the erosion of the trust that was built over years,” he wrote.
“Today, we need a voice like yours (Zarif’s) merging from within Iran to propose solutions to this war,” he added.