“Iran did not accept a ceasefire but announced a halt in operations. The approved policy was that if the enemy stops its attacks without preconditions, Iran will also end its retaliations. On my way back to Tehran, I received a message from the other side indicating a halt in attacks from 4 a.m. Tehran time. Ultimately, it was announced to the other side that Iran does not accept a ceasefire, but if the Zionist regime stops its attacks, Iran will not continue its operations,” explained the Iranian foreign minister on TV on Thursday, 26 June.

While that solved one piece of the jigsaw puzzle about which country sued for peace and how the ceasefire was ‘brokered’, other pieces of the puzzle remain.

Have Iran’s nuclear capabilities been ‘obliterated’, as was claimed by President Trump, or have they been severely damaged, as was admitted by Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei?

Is it now Iran’s turn to practise deception on the global stage?

Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation (AEOI) has reportedly confirmed that its facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan were heavily damaged by Israeli and US airstrikes during the war (including direct hits by US B-2 bombers using GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs). This assessment counters the US intel, as reported by the CNN and the NYT, that held that Iran retains substantial capacity to resume its nuclear programme.

However, there are now suspicions that Iran can still pay back the US — and the West as a whole — by resorting to misleading and confusing statements.

Iran’s foreign minister pointed out on Thursday, 26 June, “While we are being asked to return to the negotiating table, I would like to ask which table they are referring to?

“We were negotiating with the US when the table was destroyed by Israel with their pre-emptive britzkrieg. When we were negotiating with Europe, the United States destroyed the table by attacking our peaceful nuclear programme.”

Negotiations and talks, Iran has concluded, were all along a ‘Western’ deception. And it is a game that Iran too can play now.

The Iranian parliament, which had passed a bill authorising the government to stop all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA), received approval from the Guardian Council on 26 June. It has now been signed into law.

This means IAEA inspectors will no longer have access to Iran’s nuclear facilities. Cameras and other equipment that the IAEA had installed for monitoring and surveillance are being switched off.

Iran interpreted the IAEA’s insistence that Iran open up its nuclear installations immediately for inspection after the attacks as an attempt to assess the extent of damage to nuclear facilities — an assessment that would be shared with its attackers, possibly?

Iran also accuses the IAEA inspectors of spying for Israel, of disclosing coordinates and other details of the sites to facilitate its attacks. It has also accused IAEA director-general Rafael Grossi of inciting the attack, by releasing a distorted report that appeared to indicate that Iran was about to produce a nuclear warhead.

A nuclear warhead requires uranium to be enriched up to 90 per cent and Iran had the capability of enriching uranium up to 60 per cent already. Expert opinion is divided on how long Iran might take (or might have taken) to level up to 90 per cent, with estimates ranging from a few weeks or months to a year or more.

The CNN and the NYT reported that Pentagon’s intel assessment after the US strike at three nuclear installations were that: (a) Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is intact; (b) that enriched uranium was moved out of the sites before the US air strike; and (c) that despite the assassination of its top scientists and generals by Israel, Iran has the knowledge and the skill to carry on with its nuclear programme.

So, the final piece of the puzzle that remains is simply this: When will Round 2 begin, with Round 1 seemingly won by Iran.