The United States and Iran on Sunday announced that they had reached a tentative agreement that would extend the ceasefire, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and set the stage for further talks to both ultimately end the war and curb Iran’s nuclear program.
So, there’s a deal — or at least an agreement from both sides to keep talking — but few details, if any. Neither side has released a copy of the memorandum of understanding, or MOU, which extends the ceasefire by 60 days as negotiations for a final deal continue. The MOU is expected to be signed by representatives from both countries on Friday in Geneva.
Since announcing the agreement, Iran and the U.S. have issued statements that contradict each other on key aspects of the framework. Here are three examples.
The Strait of Hormuz
What Iran says: “Iran said ships passing through the strait would be regulated by Iran and Oman — suggesting Tehran would seek to retain some control over the waterway,” Bloomberg reported.
What Trump says: “President Trump said in an interview on Sunday afternoon that the agreement he had reached with Iran would ultimately assure that the Strait of Hormuz was ‘permanently toll-free,’” The New York Times’ David Sanger reported. “The memorandum of understanding … suspends tolls in the strait for only 60 days, and then promises a regional dialogue about the future. Iran had never charged tolls before the war, so the president is essentially celebrating a return to the prewar status quo.”
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Cash for Iran
What Iran says: Reuters reported that shortly before the deal was announced, “a senior Iranian official” told the outlet that “under the terms of the draft, the U.S. would agree to release $25 billion of frozen Iranian assets.”
What Trump says: Similarly, shortly before the deal was announced, Trump posted on Truth Social that “unlike Obama’s Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in payments to [Iran], including 1.7 Billion Dollars in green, cold cash, no money will exchange hands.” (“Administration has settled on ‘no money will exchange hands’ as way to paper over unfreezing assets and Iranian oil sales,” suggested Phil Gordon of the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.)
Highly enriched uranium
What Iran says: A senior Iranian official told Reuters that the “draft deal would allow Iran, which denies seeking a nuclear bomb, to dilute its enriched uranium inside the country.”
What Trump says: “We’ll get the nuclear dust later on when we’re ready to go in and do it. I’d say over the next month or two, there’s no rush,” Trump told The Wall Street Journal in an interview on Sunday. He called it “harmless.”
Expect additional examples like these over the next few days, ahead of Friday’s scheduled MOU signing. As former Biden-era State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Sunday, “We’re about to have a week of the Trump admin and the Iranians making conflicting claims about the deal to satisfy their respective hardliners, with both hoping no one will study the actual details if and when they emerge.”
Zack Stanton is deputy managing editor of news for MS NOW.