Peace processes die of vagueness; the Muscat round answered with a filing system. Five working groups, fixed calendars, published mandates.
File one, the corridor: already decoupled — the December mandate renewal is insulated from every other fight, because both belligerents need the lane more than the leverage.
File two, verification: the hardest. Eleven ceasefire weeks, three violations, three competing attributions; the fix imports the corridor's most successful feature — a joint incident cell with third-party technicians.
File three, nuclear: the IAEA's re-entry sequencing, traded against file four, sanctions — the calibration neither capital can sell at home yet.
File five, proxies: the item that nearly killed the agenda paper, parked deliberately last.
India's stake rides in every file without a seat at any: 60 percent of LPG through the lane, frigates in the escort, a diaspora in the blast radius. The closing statements shared one word — "predictability." The region's scarcest commodity now has a manufacturing schedule. Coverage continues on our world desk.
