The agreement would extend the ceasefire for 60 days as the U.S. and Tehran discuss removing Iran’s enriched uranium.
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President Donald Trump signaled Friday that he is moving closer to approving a deal to extend a ceasefire in Iran, announcing that he was holding a Situation Room meeting to “make a final determination.”
Trump said in a social media post that some unspecified aspects of a deal “have been agreed to,” while also outlining what he described as his most important conditions. It was unclear whether Iran had agreed to them all, including the stipulation that the United States would unearth and destroy Iran’s highly enriched uranium.
Trump also said Iran must immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz, remove any remaining mines in the vital waterway and “agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb.”
He said that “no money will be exchanged, until further notice,” possibly a reference to calls by Iran for the U.S. to release the country’s frozen assets.
Senior officials from the U.S. and Iran said earlier this week that they had reached a tentative agreement to suspend the months-long war in the Middle East, launched by the U.S. and Israel with strikes on Iran in late February. Trump and his counterparts in Tehran have continued to review the framework in recent days.
The agreement in question is a memorandum of understanding that would extend the current ceasefire for another 60 days while the two sides iron out specifics of a plan to remove enriched uranium from Iran, among other goals, a senior U.S. official previously told The Washington Post.
On Thursday evening, Vice President JD Vance said that the “Iranians want a deal” but that it was too early to know “when or if” an agreement would be reached. Vance said the two sides were “going back and forth on a couple of language points,” which included the “question of enrichment.”
A major point of contention has been whether Iran would agree to turn over its highly enriched uranium, which Trump has referred to as “nuclear dust.” Tehran says its nuclear program is solely for domestic energy, but the U.S. and Israel fear the fuel could be used for a weapon.
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“We do think they’re negotiating in good faith,” Vance told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, after returning from a trip to speak to graduating Air Force Academy cadets in Colorado Springs.
Another sticking point has been whether a ceasefire would cover the fighting between Israel and Lebanon.
Military officials from those two countries were scheduled to meet at the Pentagon on Friday under U.S. supervision, with a separate round of political talks set for next week, an Israeli official told The Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic issues.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who spoke to White House reporters Thursday, said “nothing is going to be on the table” until Iranian officials first agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil flows out of the Middle East and into the global economy.
Trump has repeatedly suggested an agreement is near in recent weeks, only to revert to threats when the Iranians issue a denial. He has also made demands — saying various Arab countries must join the Abraham Accords, for example — that appear to have remote odds at best.
Trump’s renewed suggestions of an agreement Wednesday came after both sides exchanged drone and missile fire in the region in recent days, underscoring the fragile nature of the ceasefire first declared in April.
But the signals from both sides that a deal is possible have grown stronger in the past few days. The president on Wednesday said he believed that Iran was “starting to give us the things that they have to give us,” without elaborating.
“And if they do, that’s great, and if they won’t, then the man on my left is going to finish them off,” he said in a Cabinet meeting, referring to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
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