Senior US officials release text of Iran deal
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to read the draft, which Iran has not yet published, ahead of the official signing ceremony on Friday.
According to officials, the draft agreement includes a new “minimum” standard for separating highly enriched Iranian uranium and includes provisions to ensure Lebanon’s “territorial integrity” following recent Israeli attacks on Hezbollah on Lebanese soil.
Also Read: Trump said Israel had a copy of the Iran MoU as the deal approached; Called Iranians ‘tough negotiators’
In return, the United States will waive, but will not eliminate, some broad sanctions against Iran after the deal is signed.
The U.S. draft agreement only guarantees free passage of the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days and does not prevent future charges, officials said.
The agreement is expected to be signed in Switzerland on Friday. It is also projected that Iran will receive at least $300 billion for reconstruction after the war, according to leaked copies of the interim agreement that officials say largely matches the document.
Trump raises uncertainty about signing plans
US President Donald Trump has created some uncertainty about whether the signing will take place as planned. When asked how confident he was that the ceremony would take place, Trump noted the unpredictability of the agreements.
“You never know about deals, do you? But you’ll find out soon enough,” he said.
The United States and Israel went to war on February 28 in part to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons; But Trump’s goals in this conflict have changed many times. The interim agreement stops the war before this goal is achieved. Instead, it opens a two-month window for nuclear negotiations and appears to provide Iran with many benefits upfront but little in return.
Also Read: Will the US-Iran Hormuz agreement be signed today? The report states that the signing could be moved to Wednesday.
For example, the US agreement to allow Iran to immediately sell its oil freely and its offer to eventually lift all sanctions represent major concessions that go beyond the terms of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Trump withdrew America from the agreement during his first term, declaring it the “worst deal ever.”
The deal is likely to face intense opposition in Washington and appears to be a major setback for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has faced criticism from the domestic media, his opponents and even some allies as details emerge.
Agreement will stop fighting and open more negotiations
Much of the deal would restore the status quo before the war, including an end to hostilities, a resumption of talks between the United States and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program, and the reopening of the strait, a vital passage for the world’s oil and gas, whose closure sparked a historic energy crisis.
The agreement also includes ending the conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed militia group Hezbollah in Lebanon. This is one of the most sensitive parts of the agreement because Israel has maintained that it will continue to defend itself and occupy large areas of Lebanon. Iran has said Israel should withdraw under the agreement, but the leaked versions make no mention of withdrawal.
Another person who was briefed on the memorandum of understanding after it was signed and viewed a copy in advance said it largely matched the text published by Saudi-owned broadcaster Al Arabiya, which reported details of the agreement on Tuesday. Two people spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the discussions.
Two other officials in the Middle East, who spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, also said the versions published by Al Arabiya and Bloomberg largely matched the final agreement.
The White House and other American officials did not release the terms and did not immediately respond to questions. But the agreement “does not reflect the language of the actual agreement,” White House communications director Steven Cheung wrote online Wednesday after CNN published a leaked version of the agreement, without elaborating.
Iran has also not published its official version of the agreement. The semi-official Tasnim news agency, which is close to the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, claimed on Wednesday that Bloomberg’s version contained missing parts but did not offer a full explanation.
Trump has at times hinted at a variety of war-related goals, including vowing to end Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and its support for Hezbollah and other proxy groups in the region. He also suggested that this could lead to the overthrow of the Iranian government.
The interim agreement falls short of all those goals, but Trump welcomed it on Wednesday.
“Nobody knows what it is, but it’s very powerful,” Trump said in France, where he attended the Group of Seven summit.
But he also opened the door to walking away from it: “It’s a memorandum of understanding, and if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, throwing bombs at them.”
Huge concessions offered to Iran
Some concessions to Iran, including the complete lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen assets, will be made gradually and linked to progress in nuclear talks, according to Pakistani officials, one of the key mediators. They summarized some of the important points of the agreement, on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
But in the meantime, the United States will waive sanctions that allow Iran to sell oil freely.
The Islamic Republic’s oil export revenue in 2024 was over $46 billion. China, the main oil buyer, is believed to be buying at market prices due to a desire to ignore sanctions.
Granting oil waivers at the beginning of the 60-day negotiations deprives the United States of a key vantage point. Sanctions against Iranian oil were lifted only with the signing of the general agreement in 2015.
The interim agreement also opens the door to ending all sanctions facing Iran by the US and the UN (including Tehran’s weapons programs and human rights abuses), although the schedule for this will be determined later. Still, this far surpasses the 2015 deal, which lifted only some sanctions in exchange for Iran significantly reducing its uranium enrichment and stockpile.
The deal will also provide Iran with at least $300 billion to rebuild after intense US and Israeli bombing; An extraordinary figure and another huge benefit for Iran. The money also appears contingent on the progress of further negotiations.
US Vice President JD Vance said that Gulf Arab countries will invest this amount. But Gulf states will likely be reluctant to help Iran after Iran’s attacks in the war destroyed oil facilities and other facilities on their territory.
Trump reiterated on Wednesday that the United States would not contribute and said it was up to other countries whether they wanted to invest.
The agreement will provide relief to the global economy
The deal provides a big win for the global economy: reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of oil and gas trade passed before the war began. Since then, Iran’s attacks and threats against ships have effectively closed the strait.
The closure of the strait has increased energy prices worldwide and caused many basic needs, including food, to become more expensive. Iran has released some ships paying tolls in the strait, which has long been considered an international waterway, in a way that has never been done before. The US later provided military support to dislodge other tankers, but traffic was nowhere near pre-war levels.
The agreement also states that the US will lift the blockade of Iranian ports and the strait will return to pre-war traffic levels within 30 days, while it is also acknowledged that Iranian mines may need to be destroyed.
Many issues will need to be resolved in future talks
The interim agreement sets a 60-day period to negotiate on limiting Iran’s nuclear program, which may be extended; This is an issue that has been discussed without success in multiple rounds of negotiations during Trump’s second administration. The United States has promised not to threaten military action under the current agreement after two rounds of talks were disrupted by the attacks.
Iran maintains that its nuclear program is peaceful, even though it has enough enriched uranium to build multiple atomic bombs, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
In the interim agreement, Iran reiterated that it would never produce nuclear weapons; This was also a promise he made in the 2015 nuclear deal.
