COLUMN: Iran-USA in Lucerne — Four Working Groups to Defuse a Century of Mutual Distrust

COLUMN: Iran-USA in Lucerne — Four Working Groups to Defuse a Century of Mutual Distrust

Introduction: The Technicians of Peace at Work in the Land of Clockmakers

Lucerne, June 2026: When Enemies Appoint Subcommittees

There is something irreducibly banal — and extraordinary — about the image of American and Iranian technicians sitting around a table in Switzerland to discuss nuclear inspection protocols, sanctions formulas, and reconstruction mechanisms. Irreducibly banal because this is how all serious negotiations are conducted: in the meticulous tedium of working subgroups, the commas in treaties, the appendix lists of exceptions. Extraordinary because these two countries have been glaring at each other since 1979, a war briefly brought them into direct confrontation in 2025, and they are already creating four technical working groups.

The Lucerne talks produced, according to the joint declaration of Qatar and Pakistan — the two mediators — the establishment of a "high-level committee" tasked with overseeing a roadmap toward a final agreement within 60 days, and four technical subgroups: sanctions relief, nuclear issues, reconstruction, and implementation of commitments already made. This is a serious institutional apparatus. It is also an apparatus that can stall at any stage.

The Context: A Post-Bombing Peace Still Fragile

To understand Lucerne, one must recall the context. In 2025, the United States and Israel conducted military strikes against Iranian nuclear enrichment sites. These strikes significantly degraded Tehran's nuclear capabilities. In response, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, plunging oil markets into crisis. A memorandum of understanding was signed on June 17, 2026 to end active hostilities. The Lucerne talks are the technical sequel to that memorandum — the attempt to transform a truce into an architecture of lasting peace.

The road is immense. The United States wants verifiable and permanent Iranian denuclearization. Iran wants full sanctions relief, the unfreezing of its blocked assets, and recognition of its right to a civilian nuclear program. These starting positions are very far apart. The four Lucerne working groups are the mechanism to determine whether this gulf can be bridged.

The First Working Group: Sanctions — A Labyrinth of Thousands of Pages

Iran Sanctions: An Architecture Built Over Decades

The first and probably most complex working group concerns sanctions relief. American sanctions against Iran constitute a regulatory edifice built layer by layer since 1979 — presidential decrees, acts of Congress, secondary sanctions, banking restrictions, sectoral embargoes. This network is of such complexity that it takes specialized lawyers to map it.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi indicated in a post on X that the June 2026 agreement had already included substantial concessions from Washington: lifting of sanctions on oil and petrochemical exports, removal of the maritime blockade, unfreezing of certain frozen Iranian assets, and the launch of a major reconstruction and development initiative for Iran. These measures represent significant relief — but the working group will need to detail the precise mechanisms, timetables, and conditions under which these reliefs could be reversed.

The Dispute Over Frozen Assets: A Billion Here, a Billion There

The question of frozen assets perfectly illustrates the tensions in these negotiations. JD Vance, the American vice-president, declared that if Iranian assets were released, they would be used to purchase American agricultural products — corn, wheat, soybeans — under American and Qatari supervision. The spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry immediately contested this framing: "Iran is the sole authority on how to manage these resources." This public contradiction reveals a fundamental divergence on Iranian economic sovereignty — a question that will not be easily resolved within the working group.

Figures of two tranches of 6 billion dollars have been cited by some sources — meaning 12 billion dollars in assets waiting to be released. For Iran, in economic crisis for years, this is vital breathing room. For the United States, it is a pressure lever — and the question of how these funds will be used is a political red line vis-à-vis a Congress that fears seeing resources finance Iran's missile program or support for regional proxies.

The Second Working Group: The Nuclear Question — The One That Changes Everything

The Bombs That Changed the Game

The nuclear working group is the one on which the credibility of the entire process depends. The American strikes of 2025 hit the underground enrichment sites at Fordow and Natanz, significantly degrading Iran's capacity to produce enriched uranium. According to Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are expected to visit the bombed sites — an important piece of information: it means post-strike inspections are planned to assess the real state of the installations.

Donald Trump stated on social media that Iran had "agreed to long-term nuclear inspections," adding that without this agreement "there would be no further negotiations." This is a rhetorical show of force that conceals a more nuanced reality. The Iranian side refused to confirm this level of commitment: cooperation with the IAEA would continue "under existing safeguard arrangements and in accordance with the decisions of parliament and the Supreme National Security Council" — a formulation that leaves the door open but does not push it.

What the IAEA Can and Cannot Do

The IAEA has not yet responded to questions about its potential role in post-strike inspections. Since the 2025 conflicts, the agency has operated intermittently in Iran but has not had access to the bombed enrichment sites. Gaining that access would be a significant change — and it would allow, for the first time, an external assessment of the real extent of damage to Iran's nuclear capabilities, ending the contradictory claims from both Washington (which insists the program was severely degraded) and Tehran (which has not yet made precise statements about the extent of the damage).

The nuclear working group will also need to address fundamental questions about the future of the Iranian program: what level of enrichment will Iran be permitted to maintain? What stockpile of enriched uranium may it keep? What verification mechanisms — unannounced inspections, continuous monitoring, permanent access — will be put in place? These questions nearly broke the 2015 JCPOA negotiations on multiple occasions. They will not be resolved in 60 days.

The Third Working Group: Reconstruction — Who Finances What?

An Iranian Economy in Ruins, an Opportunity for Negotiators

The third working group covers "reconstruction and development" of Iran. It is perhaps the most interesting from a diplomatic standpoint, because it represents an attempt to use positive economic incentives — rather than coercive pressures alone — to modify Iranian behavior. An Iran that benefits from investment, that sees its middle class rebuild, that has an economic stake in regional stability, is theoretically more likely to reduce its destabilizing activities than a besieged and cornered Iran.

This theory — "peace through prosperity" — has a certain coherence. It has precedents: the economic integration of postwar Germany and Japan, the economic opening of China in the 1980s (even if the latter did not produce the hoped-for democratization). But it also has its limits: authoritarian regimes can use economic prosperity to reinforce their political grip, as the mullahs' Iran could do, channeling resources toward the security apparatus and armed groups rather than toward citizens.

Who Will Invest in Iran? The Problem of Political Risk

The practical question before the "reconstruction" working group is simple but thorny: who will invest in Iran? Western companies, which fled en masse after the American withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018, will not return without solid legal guarantees and a complete lifting of the secondary sanctions that penalize third parties trading with Tehran. These guarantees can only be offered by the American Congress — a significant faction of which remains deeply hostile to any deal with Iran.

China and Russia already have substantial commercial agreements with Iran — and they would be happy to benefit further if sanctions ease. But leaving Iranian reconstruction in Beijing's and Moscow's hands would create new, problematic strategic dependencies. The working group will therefore have to navigate between Iran's economic urgency, American distrust, Chinese and Russian competition, and Congressional constraints.

The Fourth Working Group: Implementation — Verifying the Commitments

The Eternal Problem of Verification

The fourth working group covers the "implementation of commitments" already made — meaning the mechanism that allows each party to verify the other is respecting its obligations. It is the most technical and most crucial group, because without a credible verification mechanism, all other agreements are mere wishful thinking.

The experience of the 2015 JCPOA haunts these negotiations. The agreement included IAEA verification mechanisms that the United States eventually deemed insufficient — or at least which the Trump administration used as a pretext to withdraw in 2018. The central question for the 2026 working group is: how do you design a mechanism robust enough to be technically credible, flexible enough not to humiliate Iranians, and clear enough to withstand the next American administration change?

The Hormuz-Lebanon "Deconfliction Cell": An Institutional Innovation

An interesting element to emerge from the Lucerne discussions is the creation of a "deconfliction group" — a communications cell — to manage maritime incidents in the Strait of Hormuz and ongoing hostilities in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah. This mechanism, inspired by the Cold War military hotlines between the USSR and the United States, aims to prevent local incidents from escalating into catastrophic confrontations.

This is a pragmatic and welcome institutional innovation. The Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately 20% of the world's oil transits, is an extremely narrow geographic space where a navigation error or provocation by a non-state actor can trigger a major diplomatic incident. A direct communications line between Tehran and Washington to defuse such situations is exactly the kind of "institutional plumbing" that has been missing for decades.

The Positions at the Table: Where Both Sides Remain Irreconcilable

What Washington Will Not Concede

The American non-negotiable positions are clear: no agreement that would allow Iran to reconstitute a nuclear program capable of leading to an atomic weapon. On this point, Trump, Vance, Rubio, and Congress are aligned. Sanctions relief will be conditioned on verifiable proof of nuclear compliance — not promises. And on the file of Iranian ballistic missiles and support for regional proxies (Hezbollah, Houthis, pro-Iranian Iraqi militias), Washington will seek concrete commitments.

It is precisely on these last two points — missiles and proxies — that negotiations risk hitting a wall. The US-Iran memorandum signed on June 17, 2026 reportedly, according to various sources, explicitly excluded Iranian ballistic missiles and militia support from its scope. If accurate — and sources diverge on this — it represents a major American concession that Washington will need to defend domestically before a hostile Congress.

What Tehran Will Not Concede

Iran's red lines are equally clear, even if sometimes expressed in circumlocutory diplomatic language. Iran will not renounce what it considers its "inalienable right" to uranium enrichment for civilian purposes — a position consistent with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but contested in the Iranian context. It will not surrender its ballistic missile capabilities — which it presents as essential to national defense against Israel. And it will not cut its links to Hezbollah and other groups it supports — which form an integral part of its "forward defense doctrine."

On the nuclear program, Iranian spokesman Baghaei declared that cooperation with the IAEA would continue "under existing safeguard arrangements" — meaning: on the terms they have already accepted, nothing more. And he added that Iran "has no intention of acquiring a nuclear weapon" — a statement of principle that says nothing about the high-density enrichment activities that would allow building such a weapon quickly if the political decision were made.

Pakistan and Qatar: The Indispensable Mediators

Why These Two Countries and Not Others?

The mediating roles of Pakistan and Qatar in the Iran-USA negotiations deserve some explanation. These two countries have relationships with both parties that confer on them a rare position. Qatar hosts the largest American air base in the Middle East (Al Udeid) while maintaining diplomatic relations with both Iran and Hamas. This dual relationship has made it indispensable in several regional negotiations. Pakistan shares a long border with Iran, has substantial economic ties with Tehran, and benefits from a certain Muslim credibility that facilitates its good offices.

These two mediators have their own agendas, of course. Qatar seeks to consolidate its regional role as indispensable mediator — an influence strategy that has served it well in the Hamas and Afghanistan files. Pakistan seeks to stabilize its western border and prevent US-Iran tensions from spilling into its region. These interests converge with the mediation process's requirements — even if mediation can stall if the mediators' interests diverge in the future.

Europe's Absence: An Admission of Powerlessness

One notes the absence of the European Union from the Lucerne process — in contrast to the 2015 JCPOA negotiations, where France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (the "E3") played a central role. This European marginalization is revealing of the transformation of the diplomatic landscape under Trump: Washington manages directly, with its own trusted mediators, without needing to validate its choices with its European allies.

This is a loss for the quality of the process — European expertise on the Iranian file was genuine, and European involvement gave the agreement broader multilateral legitimacy. But it is also a political reality that Europe must internalize: its role in major regional negotiations shrinks if it does not speak with one voice and if it lacks the means to weigh in operationally.

The American Congress: The Actor That Can Undo Everything

Trump's Constitutional Constraint

One of the most significant structural risks of the Lucerne process is constitutional: any binding agreement with Iran must, under the American law of 2015 (Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act), be submitted to Congress for approval. And Congress — particularly the Republican Senate — contains a faction deeply hostile to any deal with Tehran that does not include total disarmament of missiles and a break with proxies.

Trump can circumvent this constraint by concluding a "memorandum of understanding" (MOU) rather than a formal treaty — which is what the agreement of June 17, 2026 did. But an MOU can be unilaterally canceled by the next administration, as Trump himself did with the JCPOA in 2018. The institutional fragility of these non-ratified agreements is their Achilles heel: if companies and governments are not certain the agreement will hold, they do not invest, sanctions are not truly lifted in practice, and Iran draws the conclusion that the process is not worth its concessions.

The 2026 Midterm Elections: A Sword of Damocles

The American midterm elections in November 2026 add additional time pressure. Trump has an interest in announcing a "grand deal" with Iran before these elections to demonstrate his diplomatic capabilities. This political timetable can accelerate negotiations — but it can also lead to announcing as an "agreement" what is only a statement of principles too vague to be actionable. The risk of a premature announcement is real — and its consequences in the event of subsequent failure would be disastrous for the credibility of any future Iranian diplomacy.

This is a familiar tension in American diplomacy: the domestic electoral agenda and the diplomatic agenda follow incompatible logics. Serious negotiations take time — time that electoral timetables do not always grant.

Iran and the IAEA: An Instrumentalized Relationship

Cooperation at Variable Geometry

The relationship between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency is a long history of partial cooperation, strategic blockages, and selective transparency. From the 2002 revelations about clandestine Iranian nuclear activities to the 2025 strikes, Iran has used cooperation with the IAEA as a diplomatic adjustment variable — granting access when tactically useful, refusing it when inspections threatened to reveal sensitive activities.

The fact that IAEA inspectors are expected to visit the sites bombed in 2025 is itself important news. The IAEA has not had access to these installations since the strikes — meaning the real state of Iran's nuclear program post-bombardment remains in the domain of expert speculation. Independent inspections would finally provide objective data, ending the contradictory claims from Washington (which insists it severely degraded the program) and Tehran (which has not yet made precise statements about the extent of damage).

The Highly Enriched Uranium Stockpile: The Most Explosive File

The most explosive file in the nuclear negotiations concerns the stock of highly enriched uranium accumulated by Iran before the 2025 strikes. According to IAEA reports before the bombardments, Iran had accumulated enough uranium enriched to 60% to produce, if the political decision were made, several nuclear weapons within a few months. Was this stockpile destroyed by the strikes? Partially? Entirely? Nobody knows with certainty. The Lucerne nuclear working group will need to obtain this information — and it is precisely the information Iran may not want to disclose.

This is the nuclear quadrature of the circle: an agreement that does not fully resolve ambiguity about the program's post-strike status and the location of the enriched uranium stockpile cannot be considered credible. But providing this information means Iran revealing residual capabilities it may prefer to keep secret as a strategic insurance policy.

The Strait of Hormuz: The Hostage Value of a Critical Maritime Route

Twenty Percent of the World's Oil in a Geopolitical Bottleneck

The Strait of Hormuz — this strip of water 33 kilometers wide between Iran and Oman — is the world's most strategically critical energy artery. Approximately 20 to 21% of global oil consumption transits through it daily. Its closure by Iran in 2025, in response to American strikes, triggered a global oil crisis, sent barrel prices soaring, and contributed to the acceleration of diplomatic discussions.

The establishment of a deconfliction mechanism for Hormuz — and the publication of information about the progressive resumption of oil traffic since the conclusion of the June 17, 2026 memorandum — represents a tangible economic gain for both parties. Iran benefits from the oil revenues that traffic generates. The United States and its allies benefit from stabilized oil prices. This is a concrete example of the "win-win" logic that proponents of the agreement champion — even if this logic remains precarious until the overall agreement is finalized.

The Fragility of Hormuz's Reopening

The negotiations communiqué mentions that after the memorandum's signing, a resumption of maritime traffic at Hormuz was in sight — with approximately 67 million barrels stored on tankers immobilized in the Gulf and waiting for release. These figures give an idea of the concrete economic impact of the blockade — and of the stakes of keeping the route open. But tensions persist: Iran reportedly announced, according to some sources, that it had again closed the strait following clashes involving Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The stability of Hormuz is directly linked to the resolution of the Lebanese file — everything is connected.

It is precisely this interconnection of crises — Iranian nuclear, Lebanon, Hormuz, Houthis, sanctions — that makes this diplomacy so complex and so risky. It is impossible to resolve each file independently of the others. Each partial agreement creates ripple effects on the other files. This is a system of vertiginous interdependence that the four Lucerne working groups must navigate simultaneously.

What the 60 Days Will Reveal

The Roadmap Toward a Final Agreement: An Ambitious Timeline

The Qatar-Pakistan joint declaration mentions a "roadmap toward a final agreement within 60 days." This is an extremely ambitious timetable for negotiations covering questions as fundamental as denuclearization, sanctions, economic reconstruction, and verification. The 2015 JCPOA took two years to negotiate, between the political framework of Lausanne and the final agreement of Vienna. 60 days for a more comprehensive agreement — which must also cover missiles and proxies — is an audacious bet.

There are two possible readings of this timeline. The optimistic reading: the 2025 strikes so profoundly shifted the balance of power that Iran is prepared to make concessions more rapidly than in 2015. The skeptical reading: the 60-day timeline is a political pressure framework — it compels both parties to move quickly — and it will very likely be extended if the technical groups do not reach agreement. What matters is not the deadline, but the direction of movement.

The Encouraging Signals to Watch

Despite all the reservations, some signals are encouraging. The fact that Iran accepted the establishment of four technical groups — and not merely statements of principle — indicates a willingness to engage with the operational details of commitments. The fact that Pakistan and Qatar are involved as mediators — with formal mediation structures — gives the process a certain institutionalization. And the fact that both parties continue to talk, despite public disagreements about the scope of commitments, is itself a sign that war will not resume immediately.

Peace with Iran will not be beautiful. It will not be complete. It will not fully satisfy anyone. But an imperfect peace that prevents nuclear war in the Middle East is infinitely better than the status quo ante. Columnists who wait for the perfect agreement are waiting for something that does not exist.

The Realities of the Iranian Ground: A People's Aspirations Under Pressure

The Iranian Population and the Peace Dividend

Behind the technical discussions about working groups and sanctions formulas, there is an Iranian population that has been suffering for decades. Iran's economy is in structural crisis: chronic inflation, unemployment among young graduates, currency depreciation, brain drain. Sanctions have contributed to this impoverishment — but the corruption and mismanagement of the mullahs' regime have greatly amplified the economic difficulties.

Surveys conducted before the 2025 strikes showed a population that, despite its nationalism, was weary of confrontation with the West and aspired to economic normalization. The protests of 2022-2023 ("Woman, Life, Freedom") had revealed a deep fracture between the population and the regime. If the Lucerne agreement leads to real sanctions relief and economic recovery, part of the Iranian population could see it as a tangible improvement in its daily life — which politically strengthens moderate forces within the system.

The Question of Internal Political Legitimacy in Iran

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, described as a moderate, needs concrete economic results to defend the negotiation process against the system's hawks — the Revolutionary Guards, parliamentary conservatives, factions that see any deal with Washington as a strategic capitulation. If sanctions reliefs are rapid, visible, and beneficial to Iranians' daily lives, Pezeshkian strengthens his position. If the agreement stalls in technical disputes and sanctions remain in place in practice, the hawks will regain the initiative.

This Iranian domestic political dynamic is underestimated in Western analyses. Iran is not a monolithic block. There are forces that want normalization and forces that want confrontation. The outcome of the Lucerne negotiations will have direct effects on the balance of these forces — in one direction or the other.

The Energy Diplomacy: Oil, Gas, and the Temptation of Targeted Relief

Black Gold as a Negotiating Variable

Among the most powerful levers available to Washington in this negotiation is the oil question. Sanctions on Iranian oil have substantially reduced Tehran's capacity to finance its regional ambitions and nuclear program. Targeted relief allowing Iran to export its oil freely again would represent a considerable economic gain — and therefore a real incentive to respect its commitments. Oil merchants are watching Lucerne with as much attention as diplomats.

But the counterpart is demanding: Iran would need to accept an unprecedented level of inspection and verification of its oil and gas installations, to ensure that the revenues generated are not reinvested in prohibited activities. This level of transparency is politically difficult to sell internally in Tehran, even for moderates. A formula of progressive conditional relief represents the most practicable path, but also the slowest.

Europe Lying in Wait on Energy Supply

The European Union is watching the Lucerne developments with particular interest. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the progressive cutoff of Russian gas supplies, Europe has been seeking to diversify its energy sources. An Iran reintegrated into the global economy would be one of the most significant potential suppliers — its geographic position and massive energy reserves make it a natural strategic partner for Europe in the twenty-first century.

Brussels therefore has a direct interest in the Lucerne negotiations succeeding, even if it is formally a US-Iran process. European diplomats are working behind the scenes to facilitate certain technical formulas, particularly on payment mechanisms that circumvent American sanctions. This constructive involvement is an asset, but it also creates tensions with Washington over who controls the process.

The Question of Hostages and Political Prisoners: The Human Dimension of the Negotiation

Western Citizens Detained as Bargaining Chips

Behind the grand strategic debates over uranium enrichment and sanction mechanisms, there are concrete men and women: American, European, and dual-nationality citizens detained in Iranian prisons. Washington demands their release as a precondition or as an inseparable element of any comprehensive agreement. For the families of these detainees, the Lucerne negotiations represent a spark of hope at the end of a long tunnel.

The precedents are mixed. In 2023, a partial agreement allowed the release of five Americans in exchange for the unfreezing of Iranian funds. These individual releases show that when interests converge — and when political will exists on both sides — blockages can be overcome quickly. The question is whether a broader agreement will allow a systematic release or whether this file will remain managed on a case-by-case basis.

The Impact on Western Public Opinion

The prisoner question has a direct impact on the internal political viability of an agreement in the United States. Images of American citizens released after years of detention are politically powerful — they humanize an abstract geopolitical debate and create a positive narrative that the administration can use to sell the agreement to Congress and public opinion. The American negotiating team in Lucerne therefore has every interest in integrating this dimension into the discussions, even if it is formally separate from nuclear questions.

For families waiting, the geopolitical theories about the Shia arc or regional security architecture are abstract. What they care about is getting their loved one back. Keeping this human angle in the column's framing — not reducing diplomacy to a disembodied power game — is a responsibility every journalist should take seriously.

Conclusion: A Column of Cautious Hope on the Road from Lucerne

What Lucerne Says About the State of the World

The four Lucerne working groups represent a bet on the rationality of states. A bet that even sworn enemies can sit around a table, identify their convergent interests, and build mechanisms that minimize the risk of war. It is a bet that has succeeded in the past — the Cold War did not end in nuclear conflagration precisely because both superpowers gradually developed mechanisms to manage their rivalry. It can succeed with Iran.

But the bet fails when actors cease to be rational in the diplomatic sense — when domestic politics, ideologies, provocations, or miscalculations take over. Iran has a long history of decisions that seem irrational from a Western standpoint. The United States has a long history of diplomatic processes abandoned for domestic political reasons. The 60-day roadmap will be a test of rationality for both.

The Column Will Continue

This column has no definitive conclusion — because it covers an ongoing process. The Iran-USA file is one of the most complex and most important in global diplomacy. It deserves to be followed with attention, patience, and without illusions. What is at stake in Lucerne is not only peace or war between two countries — it is the question of whether the world can learn to manage the nuclear ambitions of authoritarian states by means other than armed confrontation. The answer to that question will largely determine global security for the coming decades.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's Transparency Note

My Sources and Their Limits

This column is based on public sources — NPR, Al Jazeera, Anadolu Agency, the official statements of the parties. I have not had access to the full text of the US-Iran memorandum of June 17, 2026, which remains partially confidential. Information on the exact content of the Lucerne discussions is partial and sometimes contradictory depending on the source. I have done my best to identify verifiable facts and distinguish them from interpretations.

What I Do Not Know

I do not know whether both parties are negotiating in good faith or whether one of them is using the negotiations as a tactical tool. I do not know what China and Russia told Iranians privately about these negotiations. I do not know whether the Lucerne technical working groups have truly begun to function or whether they are still empty shells. These unknowns limit the reach of my analysis.

Sources

Primary sources

NPR — Iran's president heads to Pakistan as U.S.-Iran teams work on war-ending deal — June 23, 2026

Al Jazeera — What are the key outcomes of the Iran-US talks in Switzerland, what next? — June 22, 2026

Anadolu Agency — Factbox: Key outcomes of Switzerland summit on Iran-US talks — June 22, 2026

Secondary sources

EEW Magazine — US and Iran agree on roadmap but clash over nuclear deal — June 23, 2026

Al Jazeera — Nuclear inspectors and frozen assets: what the US and Iran disagreed on — June 23, 2026

UANI — What experts are saying about US-Iran talks — June 23, 2026