Iran Says Deal With US 'Not Imminent' as Israel Calls Framework a Failure

Iran’s foreign ministry said Monday that an agreement with the United States is “not imminent” despite what it described as progress in the talks, a public brake on a timeline that had carried oil markets and Washington’s diplomatic messaging through the weekend. The statement, reported by the Guardian, pairs with Tehran’s parallel insistence that the release of frozen Iranian assets cannot be conditioned on nuclear-track concessions, as detailed by Middle East Monitor.

The pushback matters because it reframes a negotiation that, only 48 hours earlier, US officials had hinted was within reach. Tehran is not walking away from the table — but it is publicly disowning the schedule Washington appeared to be working from, and it is doing so on the same day Israeli officials began describing the emerging framework in the harshest language they have used to date.

Tehran’s brake-pumping

Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters in Tehran that while talks have made “some progress,” characterizations of an imminent agreement do not reflect the state of play, according to Al Jazeera’s coverage. The remarks were Iran’s first on-the-record response since Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s weekend signaling that a deal was close — signaling that we previously reported had whipsawed crude markets before being walked back inside 24 hours.

The frozen-assets question is the harder of the two threads. Iran has roughly $6 billion in escrowed funds tied to the 2023 prisoner swap and additional reserves held in South Korean and Iraqi banks. Middle East Monitor reported that Iranian officials view any attempt to bundle that release into nuclear concessions as a non-starter, characterizing the assets as Iran’s own money being withheld unlawfully rather than a bargaining chip. That position narrows the universe of deal structures Washington can credibly bring to the table.

Tehran’s pushback follows yesterday’s reporting on Iran’s objections to the revised draft terms, and represents an escalation from technical objections in private to public framing in front of cameras. The shift from negotiating posture to public posture typically means one of two things: either the side doing it has decided the other side is overselling progress to its domestic audience, or it is creating room to extract additional concessions. Either reading is consistent with what Iranian officials said Monday.

Israel calls it a ‘failure’

The harder reaction came from Jerusalem. Middle East Eye reported that Israeli officials publicly described the emerging US-Iran framework as a “failure,” with one official quoted using that exact word. The escalation in language is notable. As we covered yesterday, Israel’s posture over the weekend was public concern bordering on pushback, but officials had stopped short of declaring the process broken.

That restraint did not hold into Monday. The Israeli government’s objections center on what it views as insufficient constraints on Iran’s enrichment program and on the proposed sequence of sanctions relief — concerns that have run through every iteration of US-Iran diplomacy since 2015. What is new is the public deployment of the word “failure” while talks are still active, which Israeli officials would typically reserve for after-the-fact criticism.

The Guardian separately reported that the shock of the Iran war has pushed traditional Middle Eastern rivals — Gulf states, Egypt, and Turkey among them — toward a shared interest in pressing the Trump administration to close a deal. That regional alignment is the counterweight to Israel’s pushback, and it is part of why the administration has continued to engage despite Jerusalem’s objections.

Markets pricing through the noise

Crude markets had already absorbed most of the deal hopes by the time Tehran spoke. OilPrice.com reported that Brent fell roughly 6% on the weekend signaling before stabilizing, and Monday’s “not imminent” framing did not produce a corresponding spike — a sign that traders are now treating headline-driven moves as noise around a wider trading range rather than directional signals.

The disconnect between diplomatic timeline and physical supply is doing some of the work here. As we reported earlier today, tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has resumed in fact ahead of any formal agreement. With the chokepoint open and Iranian crude moving, the geopolitical risk premium that built up during the strike cycle has bled out of the curve regardless of whether a deal is signed this week, next month, or at all.

That said, the market is not pricing zero risk. Brent is still trading at a meaningful premium to its pre-cycle baseline, and options markets show elevated demand for upside protection through the third quarter. Traders appear to be hedging the scenario in which the talks collapse and the cycle reignites, not the scenario in which the talks close cleanly.

The Qatar track

Beneath the public exchange of vetoes, the diplomatic infrastructure is still functioning. Middle East Eye reported that Iranian officials visited Doha this week as part of an ongoing diplomatic process aimed at ending the war, with Qatar continuing to play the back-channel role it has occupied throughout the cycle. Qatari mediation has historically produced incremental wins — prisoner releases, technical understandings — rather than headline agreements, and that pattern appears to be holding.

The Qatar channel is one reason Monday’s “not imminent” language should not be read as a breakdown. Iran’s public posture and its private diplomacy have run on different clocks throughout this negotiation. Today’s foreign ministry remarks tighten the public clock without obviously affecting the private one.

The other reason is that the Trump administration has, in its own messaging, signaled it is in no rush. We covered that framing yesterday — the president’s “not to rush” language gave Washington room to absorb exactly the kind of pushback Tehran delivered Monday without forcing either side into a confrontation over the timeline.

What to watch

• Tuesday’s foreign ministry briefing. Tehran typically holds a weekly press briefing on Tuesdays. Watch whether spokesman Baghaei sharpens or softens the “not imminent” framing, and whether he addresses the frozen-assets linkage in more detail.
• Whether Washington restates a timeline. The administration has not publicly used the “60-day” language some weekend reporting attributed to it. If that language reappears from a named US official this week, it would mark a significant re-escalation of expectations. If it does not, expect the negotiation to settle into a longer cadence.
• Israel’s next move. Public use of the word “failure” by an Israeli official, even unnamed, is the strongest language Jerusalem has used during active talks. Watch for whether that posture is reinforced by an on-the-record statement from the prime minister’s office, or quietly walked back through diplomatic channels.