Donald Trump says agreement to end conflict and reopen Strait of Hormuz is near
Updated ,first published
Washington: US President Donald Trump said a deal to end the war in Iran was being negotiated this weekend and was on the verge of being signed, with Washington’s leading war hawks publicly imploring him to reject the peace plan and keep bombing.
Vice President J.D. Vance returned to Washington and headed to the White House on Saturday afternoon (US time), as did Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, amid reports that the United States and Iran are about to agree on a road map to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and begin negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.
Amid intense speculation, Trump said at 4.30pm (6.30am AEST) that he had discussed a memorandum of understanding with the leaders of America’s Gulf allies, as well as Pakistan, Egypt, Türkiye and Jordan.
“An agreement has been substantially negotiated and is expected to be finalized between the United States of America, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and various other listed countries,” Trump said in a statement on social media. he said.
He added that he had a separate meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which “went very well.”
“Final aspects and details of the agreement are currently being discussed and will be announced shortly,” Trump said. “Along with many elements of the agreement, the Strait of Hormuz will also be opened.”
However, this would not be the first time Trump has announced that hostilities will end and the strait will be reopened, only for this not to happen. On April 17, he announced that Iran had agreed to fully open the strait and surrender its enriched uranium stockpiles.
As news of the impending deal spread on Saturday, some prominent Republicans called on Trump to reject the peace plan and restart military action against Iran, arguing that he would squander the gains of the initial military campaign.
Republican senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the most prominent supporters of the war, said that a deal that would allow Iran to survive and potentially control the Strait of Hormuz in the future would shift the balance of power towards Tehran and be a “nightmare” for Israel.
“It’s also intriguing why the war started,” Graham told X.
Senate Armed Services Committee Republican Chairman Roger Wicker said extending the ceasefire for another 60 days would be a disaster. “Everything achieved by Epic Operation Rage will be in vain!”
Mike Pompeo, who served as CIA director during Trump’s first term and later as secretary of state, said the deal appeared to have been made by members of Joe Biden’s administration and was “not remotely America First.”
This drew a sharp rebuke from White House communications director Steven Cheung. “Mike Pompeo has no idea what he’s talking about,” Cheung said on X. “The idiot should shut up and leave the real work to the professionals. He hasn’t read anything that’s going on, so how could he know.”
There were mixed signals from Iran regarding the agreement. According to state news agency IRNA, foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Iran was postponing talks on its nuclear program while the country was working on a memorandum of understanding that would end the war.
However, Iranian military spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaghari said that the status of the Strait of Hormuz is not an issue that concerns the American government or the countries in the south of the Persian Gulf.
“We determine whether the strait is open or closed,” he said.
Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency said Trump’s claims that the strait would be reopened “deviated from reality” and that the strait “will continue to be under Iranian rule.”
The possible breakthrough comes after Trump announced he would not attend his son’s wedding in the Bahamas this weekend and canceled a planned trip to his New Jersey golf club to return to Washington.
The war began on February 28, when joint US-Israeli air strikes severely damaged Iran’s navy, air force, weapons stockpiles and defense industrial base. The ceasefire that started on April 8 is still in effect.
Aaron David Miller, a senior Middle East adviser and former State Department negotiator, said that if the deal were real, he would do the only thing necessary: ”Buy time and space to deal with the complexity of the issues, none of which I suspect are wrapped up in a one-page framework agreement.”
Highlights include the future of Iran’s highly enriched uranium, other uranium stockpiles, centrifuges, frozen Iranian assets, sanctions, and Iran’s proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“We are a long way from what I would consider to be anything even remotely resembling a formal agreement on any issue,” said Miller, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Danny Citrinowicz, an Iran analyst at the Israel-based Institute for National Security Studies and a former Iran expert at Israel’s military intelligence unit, said it was clear that Gulf states fear Iran’s influence in the Strait of Hormuz and do not trust the United States to protect them.
“If the war ends under these conditions, Iran’s deterrence against the Gulf countries will not weaken, on the contrary, it will strengthen,” he said.
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political correspondent in Canberra.Connect with: X or email.
