Senior US officials briefed reporters on the deal with Iran on Wednesday after days of secrecy, and Iran suggested that its deal with the United States could be signed by President Donald Trump and Masoud Pezeshkian.
Such a signing ceremony would represent a major step forward for the two countries, whose diplomatic ties were severed in 1980 over the hostage crisis in Tehran.
US officials spoke on condition of anonymity to read the draft, which Iran has not yet released, ahead of a signing ceremony set for Friday.
According to the officials, the draft agreement includes a new “minimum” standard for reducing Iran’s highly enriched uranium and has provisions to guarantee the “territorial integrity” of Lebanon after Israel’s latest attack against Hezbollah on Lebanese territory.
In return, the US will lift, but not end, broad sanctions against Iran once the deal is signed.
The US draft of the agreement also protects free passage through the Strait of Hormuz for only 60 days, and does not prohibit costs in the future, officials said.
Meanwhile in Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei was quoted by Iranian state television as talking about the possibility of the two presidents signing an agreement.
Pezeshkian became president on a promise to seek better relations with the West. However, he was sidelined for months after Iran’s mass killings of protesters in January and the war as ministers took power.
Trump expressed uncertainty that the signing would take place as planned. Asked how confident he was that the event would happen, Trump commented on the unpredictability of deals.
“You don’t know about deals, do you? But you will soon,” he said.
The US and Israel went to war on February 28 in part to prevent Iran from ever getting a nuclear weapon, although Trump’s intentions in the conflict have changed repeatedly. The interim agreement halts the war before that objective is achieved. Instead, it opens a two-month period for nuclear talks and appears to offer Iran few benefits up front while offering little in return.
The US agreement to immediately allow Iran to sell its oil freely and the promise to eventually lift all sanctions, for example, represents a major compromise that goes beyond the terms of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Trump withdrew America from that deal in his first term, declaring it “the worst deal ever.”
The deal is likely to generate fierce opposition in Washington, and appears to be a major setback for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been criticized at home by the media, his opponents and allies as the details emerge.
The agreement will stop fighting and start more negotiations
Most of the agreement will restore the status quo that existed before the war, including ending hostilities, resuming negotiations between the US and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program, and reopening the strait, which is an important route for oil and natural gas to the world and whose closure caused a historic energy crisis.
The agreement includes an end to the war in Lebanon between Israel and the Iranian Hezbollah militia. That is one of the most fragile parts of the deal because Israel is adamant that it will continue to defend and occupy most of Lebanon. Iran has said that Israel must withdraw from the deal, although the leaked versions do not say anything about withdrawing.
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A person briefed on the memorandum of understanding after it was signed and another who previewed a copy said it closely resembled the text of what Saudi-owned broadcaster Al Arabiya published on Tuesday. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.
Two other officials in the Mideast, who spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, also said that the versions published by Al Arabiya and Bloomberg were more in line with the final agreement.
The White House and other US officials did not release the terms and did not immediately respond to questions.
However, White House communications director Steven Cheung wrote online Wednesday after CNN published a leaked version of the agreement that it “does not reflect the language of the actual agreement,” without elaborating.
Iran has also not published an official version of the agreement. The country’s official Tasnim news agency, close to its Revolutionary Guards, on Wednesday said Bloomberg’s version had missing parts, without giving full figures.
Trump has cited various goals for the war, including at one point vowing to end Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and its support for Hezbollah and other militant groups in the region. He also suggested that it could lead to the overthrow of the Iranian government.
The interim agreement falls short of all these goals, but Trump praised it on Wednesday.
“Nobody knows what it is, but it’s very strong,” Trump said in France, where he was attending the Group of Seven summit.
But he also opened the door to quitting: “It’s a cooperation agreement, and if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting, throwing bombs.”
Major concessions have been given to Iran
Other concessions to Iran – including the complete lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen assets – will happen gradually and be linked to progress in the nuclear talks, according to officials in Pakistan, a key mediator. They revealed some key points in the agreement on condition that the name be disclosed due to the seriousness of the matter.
But for now, the US will issue a waiver of sanctions allowing Iran to sell oil freely.
The oil export revenue of the Islamic Republic in 2024 was more than 46 billion dollars. Its biggest oil buyer, China, is believed to have bought at low market prices because of its willingness to ignore sanctions.
Granting an oil waiver at the start of the 60-day negotiations deprives the US of a major development point. Only at the end of the comprehensive agreement in 2015 were the sanctions on Iran’s oil lifted.
The interim deal also opens the door to lifting all US and UN sanctions on Iran – including those related to Tehran’s weapons programs and human rights abuses – although it says a timetable for that will be worked out over time. However, that far surpasses the 2015 deal, which lifted some sanctions in exchange for Iran significantly reducing its uranium enrichment and stockpile.
The deal will also give Iran at least $300 billion to rebuild after a heavy bombing campaign by the US and Israel – an unusual figure and another major boon for Iran. The money also seems to depend on the progress of other negotiations.
American Vice President JD Vance said that the Gulf Arab countries will invest that money. But Gulf countries may be reluctant to help Iran after Iran’s military offensive destroyed oil facilities and other sites in their region.
Trump reiterated on Wednesday that the US will not contribute and said that it is up to other countries if they want to invest.
This agreement will bring relief to the world economy
The deal provides a major win for the world economy – the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas was traded before the war began. Since then, Iranian naval attacks and naval threats have been effectively shut down.
The closure of the strait has raised electricity prices worldwide and made many basic goods, including food, more expensive. Iran has allowed some ships to pay tolls, something that has never been done before on the road, which has long been considered an international waterway.
The US later provided military support to get more tanks out, but traffic was nowhere near pre-war levels.
The agreement also states that the US will lift the blockade imposed on Iranian ports and that the tide will return to pre-war levels within 30 days, while acknowledging that Iran’s mines may need to be destroyed.
Many issues will have to be resolved in future negotiations
The interim agreement sets a 60-day window, which could be extended, to negotiate limits on Iran’s nuclear program, which has been discussed in multiple talks during Trump’s second administration without success. The US is promising not to make military threats under the current deal after two talks were disrupted by the attack.
Iran maintains its nuclear program is peaceful, although it has enough highly enriched uranium to build multiple atomic bombs, if it chooses to do so, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
In the interim agreement, Iran reiterates that it will never develop a nuclear weapon – a promise it also made in the 2015 nuclear deal.
Miller and Price reported from Washington, and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani in Evian-les-Bains, France, Darlene Superville in Geneva and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this story.
