When Washington announced that a deal with Iran was almost done, Tehran rushed to cool the expectations. The spokesman of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Esmail Baghaei, put it short and plain: "There will be no signing tomorrow." He did not rule out that it could happen in the coming days, but the message was unambiguous - not as fast as some want to portray.

According to Baghaei, the negotiations have entered their final phase, but the political and procedural steps are not yet complete. Iran stressed that the nuclear question is not on the table at all right now - the focus is on halting the conflict and on creating conditions for the next rounds of talks. In other words: first a truce, and only then the big topics like the nuclear programme and sanctions.

Behind the diplomatic vocabulary lies a familiar tactical game. One side wants to show a success within reach, the other deliberately lowers the temperature so it does not look like it is caving under pressure. The theme behind all of it is the Strait of Hormuz and regional tensions - a chokepoint through which a large share of the world's oil passes, and where every threat to close it instantly moves petrol prices around the globe, the Balkans included.

And here is what concerns us too, even though we are far from the Persian Gulf. When the big players cut deals, the small ones pay the price of their disagreements - at the pump, on the electricity bill, on the supermarket shelf. So it is worth watching every "almost finished" phase with a healthy dose of skepticism. A deal that is forever "one step from signing" yet never quite gets signed usually means someone is still haggling over something they are not saying out loud.