Mediators from Pakistan, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey have played a vital role in narrowing the differences between Iran and the US as the two countries close in on a deal to end their war, sources told The National on Sunday.
Of the four mediators, Pakistan and Qatar have played a more active role in the final stretch of talks that preceded the announcement by US President Donald Trump that an agreement was close, said the sources, who are familiar with the inner workings of negotiations.
Mr Trump also claimed the deal would stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping.
But Iranian authorities have yet to publicly confirm that a final agreement has been reached or that it would be signed on Sunday, as Mr Trump claimed.
Pakistan hosted peace talks in April that initially ended in failure but the country has continued to offer its services as a mediator behind the scenes.
"The mediators played different roles during the different stages that weeks of negotiations had gone through, but it was Pakistan and Qatar that had the bigger role in the final stages," one of the sources said.
"It's a memorandum of understanding of 14 points that provides a timeline for resolving every issue. It may take as long as one year to negotiate a permanent settlement of the conflict between Iran and the United States."
All four mediators are close US allies, but also have relations at some level with Iran. Tehran has attacked its Arab neighbours in the Gulf with missiles and drones since the US and Israel began the war with strikes on Iran in late February.
Leaders of two of the mediators - Egypt and Qatar - are to meet separately with Mr Trump on the sidelines of this week's G7 summit in France, the White House said.
Egyptian mediators have, meanwhile, been seeking to broker reconciliation between Arab nations and Iran. But experts believe Cairo's goal may be too ambitious given Iran's repeated attacks on infrastructure, energy sites and civilian targets in their Gulf neighbours, including the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait.
The sources said Lebanon, where Israel occupies a large area of the south, was part of the Iran-US deal. The proposed 60-day ceasefire will apply to Lebanon, they added. Israel launched an attack on Beirut's southern suburbs on Sunday.
Hezbollah MP Hussein Hajj Hassan said the suggestion that Lebanon is to be included in the deal was “clearly communicated" to him by Iran.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been largely sidelined in the negotiations, has rejected the inclusion of Lebanon in any deal.
A senior US official has said the US-Iran agreement is also to include the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear programme. The deal also involves the transfer of enriched uranium out of Iran and an international inspection regime, the official added. The uranium would be destroyed after it is removed.
But the sources said Iran was unlikely to accept the surrender of its stock of enriched uranium, something that Tehran views as a question of national sovereignty. They also pointed out that retrieving the uranium would take a long time since it is stored deep underground, with access routes buried by US and Israeli bombing.
Iran had insisted that up to $30 billion in frozen assets be released before the negotiations with the US got under way, the sources added.
