Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi says the negotiation process continues and will respond to the US proposal within days

Statements of this kind sit in the familiar rhythm of indirect US-Iran diplomacy, where progress is typically signalled through the exchange of written proposals and counterproposals rather than public sessions, and where each side manages domestic audiences between rounds. For crude, the operative channel is the sanctions and supply expectation embedded in the front of the curve: prior episodes of negotiation momentum have tended to bleed the geopolitical risk premium out of prompt spreads gradually rather than in one move, with the sharper dislocations reserved for breakdowns, such as withdrawn delegations, expired deadlines or snap escalatory incidents. The distinction that matters is between procedural continuity, which this is, and substantive convergence on enrichment limits and sanctions sequencing, which historically has taken multiple rounds and often stalled at the verification and guarantees stage. Worth noting the response timeline gives the market a dated checkpoint, which tends to concentrate rather than resolve the uncertainty. The follow-ons are the substance of the reply once tabled, any parallel movement in enforcement of existing sanctions on Iranian barrels, and rhetoric from other regional actors whose posture has previously hardened precisely when talks appeared to advance.