US-Iran nuclear and sanctions negotiations will NOT produce a publicly acknowledged written framework or agreement-in-principle document by May 31, 2026. Talks will continue in back-channel form; any visible output will be verbal acknowledgments of 'progress' rather than a signed or jointly circulated text.

Base rate for a complex nuclear framework emerging within a five-week window from a position of ongoing but unresolved talks is approximately 12% (derived from historical cases: Singapore 2018 produced a vague text but not a framework; Hanoi 2019 collapsed entirely; Geneva JPOA 2013 required three months under structurally superior conditions; JCPOA 2015 required eighteen months from the JPOA baseline). All four analytical frameworks independently converge on ‘No’ through distinct causal mechanisms — this cross-framework convergence is the primary confidence-raising signal, pushing the ‘No’ probability from 88% (1 minus base rate) upward to approximately 79% for the affirmative claim that no framework emerges. The remaining uncertainty (21%) reflects: (a) the genuine possibility of a Singapore-style vague principles statement that technically satisfies the ‘written framework’ criterion without resolving underlying disagreements; (b) Trump agency effects that have historically produced unexpected visible outputs; (c) Iran’s acute economic pressure which could shift Khamenei’s authorization calculus in ways that external analysis systematically underweights. The Institutionalist lens carries the highest weight because it most precisely identifies why ‘publicly acknowledged’ is the binding constraint — public acknowledgment triggers specific domestic institutional responses on both sides that the other frameworks treat as background rather than mechanism.