In brief
- The US and Iran have said that an agreement to end the War in the Middle East is closer than ever.
- Pakistan, which has been a key mediator between the two sides, also expressed optimism that a deal was finally in sight.
Iranian and United States officials said Saturday a deal to end the Middle East war was closer than ever, with mediator Pakistan also expressing optimism that an elusive agreement was within reach.
But during weeks of halting negotiations — marked by threats and exchanges of fire despite an April truce — US President Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted that a deal was all but signed, only for talks to drag on.
And disagreements between the two sides persisted, with Iranian state media publishing a breakdown of what was purportedly on the table that was at odds with the US' account.
"The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding has never been closer," Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi wrote in a social media post, referring to the Pakistani capital that hosted previous US-Iran talks.
Trump — who early on Saturday accused the Iranians of negotiating in bad faith and misrepresenting the terms that had been agreed — posted a screenshot of Araghchi message on his own feed just hours later.
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Araghchi provided some details on the agreement in an interview with state television, saying it calls for the lifting of the US naval blockade of Iran's ports and unspecified changes to the administration of the Strait of Hormuz, a key maritime trade route for oil and gas from the Gulf.
He also said the only way to deal with the country's enriched uranium — which the US alleges is part of a nuclear weapons program — "is to dilute it inside Iran".
'Not 100 per cent'
Disputing Trump's "bad faith" accusation, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said an agreement had now been reached with the US "on most points".
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose country has been a key mediator since the initial talks, confirmed that "a final, agreed-upon text of the peace deal has been reached".
"Peace has never been as close as it is now," Sharif said, while acknowledging "incessant misinformation" surrounding the deal.
A senior US official also voiced optimism that the parties would be "signing this agreement over the next few days".
"If I were to give you a confidence that we were going to be signing this agreement, I maybe would have said 75 per cent this morning; it's probably more like 80-85 per cent now, but it's not 100 per cent," the official told reporters in a call.
The Swiss foreign ministry on Friday said it had been in contact with both the US and Iran, and had "proposed Switzerland as the venue for a possible signing, should the parties agree to it".
But Araghchi said that upon finalisation, a draft deal with the US would be signed "remotely", adding that this could happen "in the coming days."
US ally Israel has said that Trump had promised it that any agreement would see Iran stripped of its enriched nuclear material, but Iran's official IRNA news agency said this was not even on the table.
'Benefits will flow'
According to IRNA's account, after an initial agreement is signed, Iran and the US would hold 60 more days of talks and "Iran's right to enrich uranium and the retention of enriched material ... will be emphasised with a view to their inclusion in the final agreement".
Beyond this, according to IRNA, Iran would insist on managing traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has blockaded since the outbreak of the war, causing major disruptions to the global economy.
On Friday, Iran's Mehr news agency, quoting a source close to the country's negotiating team, said the deal would also see the release of US$24 billion ($34 billion) in frozen Iranian assets.
But those details clashed with a summary offered by a senior White House official, who told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency that Iran had agreed to dismantle its nuclear program, destroy its enriched uranium stockpile and reopen the strait — and that Iran would not see any of its frozen funds returned until it had honoured these commitments.
US vice president JD Vance likewise said Iran was "not receiving any cash, and no funds are being released for simply signing a deal or attending a meeting".
But, he added, if "Iran meets its obligations, then economic benefits will flow to them and to the entire region".
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