WASHINGTON, June 12 - U.S. officials have indicated they are close to finalizing a peace agreement intended to end a three-month-old conflict with Iran, but the terms of any such arrangement have not been released. At present it is unclear how any potential deal would compare with the 2015 agreement that had constrained Iran's nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions.
The 2015 accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, was signed by Iran along with the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany. The agreement sought to lengthen the estimated time Iran would need to assemble a nuclear weapon from a matter of months - previously assessed in the range of two to three months - to roughly a year. Iran has consistently denied ever having had a nuclear weapons program.
That framework collapsed over successive years. The United States withdrew from the deal in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump and re-imposed sanctions. Iran began to exceed the limits set by the JCPOA in 2019. United Nations sanctions were reintroduced in 2025, and, according to public statements, the 2015 deal is now effectively dead.
Main elements of the JCPOA
Sanctions relief
Under the 2015 arrangement the United States, the European Union and the United Nations lifted sanctions that had targeted Iran's oil, gas and petrochemical sectors, its banking system, shipping and automotive industries, and its trade in gold and other minerals. The European Union and the United States also removed the Central Bank of Iran and various entities and individuals from sanctions lists. In addition, the United States permitted sales of commercial aircraft to Iran and allowed imports of Iranian carpets and foodstuffs.
Uranium enrichment
The accord required Iran to limit uranium enrichment to a purity level of 3.67% for a 15-year period, a concentration far below the roughly 90% enrichment generally associated with weapons-grade material. That 3.67% cap also represented a meaningful reduction from the 20% enrichment Iran had achieved prior to the agreement. Iran agreed to cap its stockpile of enriched uranium at 300 kilograms and to reduce its fleet of centrifuges from about 19,000 to 6,100. Excess enriched material was to be downblended to natural uranium levels or exported from the country. The United States has said these steps reduced Iran's enriched-uranium stockpile by 98% compared with pre-agreement levels. The Fordow underground enrichment site was to be repurposed into a research facility.
Plutonium production
Iran committed to redesigning the heavy-water research reactor at Arak so that it would not be capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.
Monitoring
The International Atomic Energy Agency was granted broad inspection authorities under the JCPOA, intended to verify compliance with the deal's nuclear restrictions.
The precise content of any forthcoming peace agreement and how it might address, modify or replace the elements of the JCPOA has not been disclosed. For now, the substantive limits and reliefs that characterized the 2015 deal remain the clearest articulation of the trade-offs that were previously accepted by the international parties involved.