Iran’s foreign minister says ceasefire deal with US has ‘never been closer’

Iran’s ⁠⁠Foreign ⁠⁠Minister, Abbas Araghchi, has said a deal to permanently end the US-Israeli war with Iran has “never been closer”.

Araghchi’s post on X on Friday is the clearest signal yet from Iran that a potential breakthrough touted by the administration of US President Donald Trump may materialise.

Speaking on Iran’s Press TV late Friday, Araghchi stressed that an agreement had not been signed.

He said that an agreement being considered consisted of two stages, the first being a memorandum of understanding and the second the beginning of negotiations on several issues.

Under the first stage, fighting would be halted, including Israel’s offensive in Lebanon, with commitments not to relaunch attacks.

He said the question of the future of Iran’s nuclear programme, the lifting of sanctions and the unfreezing of Iran’s assets would be addressed in the second stage of the plan. He added that the Strait of the Hormuz would remain under Iranian and Omani sovereignty, and that its future administration would be different than the past.

Araghchi stressed that the initial memorandum of understanding was still being reviewed, pointing to deep distrust with the administration of US President Donald Trump, which twice launched amid ongoing nuclear talks.

In a post on X, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker and chief negotiator, offered a cryptic message.

“Commitments made must be commitments kept. No ifs, no buts, no excuses. For the close deal ahead, there is no other way,” he wrote on X.

“You reap what you sow,” he added.

A senior US official, meanwhile, told reporters on Friday that a deal was “not quite at the finish line yet, but we are very close”.

The official said the memorandum of understanding would involve “significant” sanctions relief and the unfreezing of Iranian assets, in exchange for Iran agreeing to dismantle its nuclear programme and hand over its nuclear material.

However, he said that Iran would not immediately receive anything upon the deal’s signing, and that the lifting of sanctions and release of funds would be contingent on Iranian compliance.

More technical negotiations on several issues would begin upon the initial deal’s signing, he said.

The official echoed an earlier statement by US Vice President JD Vance, who said that none of Iran’s frozen assets would immediately be released upon an initial deal being reached.

Iran state media report

Earlier on Friday, US President Trump took aim at Iranian reports detailing supposed terms of the agreement which have not been publicly released.

He appeared to be responding to an IRNA report that outlined what it said were seven main points of the deal. The report said no new concessions had been reached on Iran’s nuclear programme and its control of the Strait of Hormuz, adding that the deal would see the immediate unfreezing of some Iranian assets.

A US official pushed back on the characterisation, saying the deal being discussed would see the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear programme, the destruction of nuclear material and the Strait of Hormuz reopened.

Speaking to Axios news on Friday, Trump said that he still believed the new deal could be signed over the weekend.

He added that Iran had privately “apologised for putting out false information”, according to the report, which noted it was unclear how the message was conveyed.

Threats and diplomacy

The latest diplomatic flurry comes after the US and Iran traded two days of strikes this week, threatening to end a pause in fighting that has seen a handful of flare-ups since April 8 .

Trump and his allies have repeatedly alternated between threatening Iran and indicating that a breakthrough on a more lasting ceasefire agreement could be near.

On Thursday, Trump threatened to seize Iran’s Kharg Island, its oil export hub. Hours later, he said he had called off a third wave of US attacks in anticipation of an agreement.

Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett, reporting from Washington, DC, said US officials have said their top demands have not changed as part of the pending deal.

“What the White House is promising is that this agreement will include performance-based components. In other words, Iran’s nuclear programme must be dismantled, the enriched uranium must be disposed of or eliminated, the Strait of Hormuz must be reopened and there can be no support for regional proxies,” she said.

“Only then, according to a White House official, will there be a release of Iran’s frozen assets,” she said.

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Almigdad Alruhaid said the terms must be circulated through several Iranian bodies before a consensus can be reached.

“For them to finalise this draft, this memorandum of understanding, it must be circled in a long list of leadership here, starting from the army headquarters and IRGC, the politicians in the parliament, and after that to the supreme leader,” Alruhaid said.

“So that is a long list of leadership here to finalise the deal to reach a consensus agreement within the country,” he said.