TEHRAN, July 8 — The 13-month ceasefire between the United States and Iran that brought relative calm to the Persian Gulf and stabilised oil markets has collapsed, after President Trump declared the agreement “over” on March 31, 2025. The original ceasefire, brokered in February 2024 through mediation by Qatar and Oman, had halted Iranian nuclear enrichment above 60 percent and secured the release of $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets for humanitarian goods.
For more than a year, the arrangement reduced military confrontations in the region and gave diplomats breathing room. That period of calm has now ended.
President Trump cited alleged Iranian violations, including support for Houthi rebels in Yemen and recent attacks on US allies in the region, as grounds for declaring the ceasefire terminated. The US State Department has confirmed that diplomatic channels remain open but are described as “strained.”
What the ceasefire achieved
The February 2024 agreement was notable for its concrete, verifiable terms. Iran agreed to stop enriching uranium above 60 percent purity — a threshold that nuclear experts consider close to weapons-grade material. In exchange, the United States permitted the release of $6 billion in Iranian assets that had been frozen overseas, with the stipulation that the funds be used only for humanitarian goods such as food and medicine.
For 13 months, the arrangement held. Military encounters in the Persian Gulf decreased, and global oil markets, which had been volatile amid regional tensions, stabilised.
The mediation by Qatar and Oman was widely seen as a diplomatic success, demonstrating that even deeply adversarial nations could find common ground through patient, neutral intermediaries. The encouraging part for many observers was that the ceasefire proved that dialogue, however difficult, could produce measurable results. Patients of diplomacy, one might say, sometimes respond better than expected to the right treatment plan.
The collapse and its causes
President Trump’s declaration on March 31, 2025, that the ceasefire was “over” did not come with a detailed public accounting of every alleged violation. But the administration pointed to two specific areas of concern: Iranian support for Houthi rebels in Yemen, and recent attacks on US allies in the region. The Houthi connection has been a longstanding irritant in US-Iran relations.
Tehran has denied direct military command over the Yemeni group, but US officials have long presented evidence of weapons shipments, training, and financial support flowing from Iran to the Houthis. During the 13-month ceasefire, the administration had expected such support to cease or at least diminish significantly.
Early findings suggest that the administration concluded the violations were not isolated incidents but part of a pattern that undermined the entire agreement. When a patient stops following the prescribed regimen, doctors must reconsider the treatment plan. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not yet formally responded to the US declaration.
That silence itself is notable — it may indicate that Tehran is calculating its next move carefully, or it may reflect internal debate about how to proceed.
What comes next
The collapse of the ceasefire leaves both nations in a familiar but dangerous position. Without the 2024 agreement in place, Iran faces no formal restriction on its enrichment activities above 60 percent. The $6 billion in humanitarian assets, already released, remain in Iranian hands — a fact that some critics of the ceasefire had warned about from the beginning.
The US State Department’s confirmation that diplomatic channels remain open, albeit strained, suggests that neither side has entirely closed the door to future talks. But the trust that was built over 13 months has been severely damaged.
For patients of international diplomacy, the prognosis is uncertain. The encouraging part is that the 2024 ceasefire demonstrated that negotiation can work, even between the United States and Iran. The cautious part is that agreements require both sides to adhere to their terms, and when one party believes the other has not done so, the entire structure can collapse.
Patients should talk to their doctor about any concerns, but in this case, the doctors are diplomats, and the treatment plan is unclear. What is clear is that the period of relative calm in the Persian Gulf has ended, and the region now faces a return to the tensions that the ceasefire had, for a time, successfully managed.
