Tehran on Friday dug in on two non-negotiables for any settlement with Washington, its right to enrich uranium and its grip on traffic through the Strait of Hormuz , even as President Trump declared a draft agreement essentially sealed and ready for signing.
State media outlet IRNA pushed back hard against Israeli claims that Trump had privately assured Jerusalem that Iran would surrender its enriched nuclear stockpile as part of any deal.
According to IRNA, that condition simply isn’t part of the discussion. The agency described an initial memorandum of understanding under which Iran and the US would enter a further 60-day negotiating window, during which Iran’s enrichment rights and its retention of existing enriched material would be written into the eventual final agreement , the opposite of what Israel says it was promised.
On Hormuz, the strategically vital chokepoint through which a large share of the world’s oil and gas flows, Iran is demanding continued authority over vessel transit. Tehran has kept the waterway effectively blockaded since the war with the US and Israel broke out, allowing only limited shipping through and requiring vessels to secure clearance from its armed forces beforehand.
IRNA was blunt that the draft text contains no commitment from Iran to hand back control of the strait or to restore the pre-war status quo, even as it confirmed the broad contours of the text are being finalized.
The dueling narratives come against a backdrop of genuine war-weariness. The conflict, triggered by US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, has simmered under an April ceasefire punctuated by sporadic flare-ups, each one reviving fears of renewed full-scale fighting.
On the streets of Tehran, the mood is one of ambivalence rather than celebration. One young cafe worker, speaking to AFP anonymously out of fear of reprisal, voiced a common sentiment: uncertainty over whether a deal would actually benefit ordinary Iranians, given that the war’s stated aim, regime change never materialized.
For his part, Trump struck a triumphant tone, announcing he was calling off a threatened new round of bombing after claiming the draft had been “brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved.”
He said the announcement of a signing time and place was imminent, and that the deal’s details had already been signed off on by US allies in the region, Israel included. His optimism rippled through markets, fueling a rally in stocks and a notable drop in oil prices.
Yet a competing account of the draft’s contents, published by Iran’s Mehr news agency citing a source close to Tehran’s negotiating team, suggests the gap between the two sides may be wider than Trump’s framing implies.
That version describes a deal that would end hostilities across all fronts, including Lebanon, unlock $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets, and establish the same 60-day window for nuclear talks. It also reportedly includes a suspension of sanctions on Iranian oil and petrochemical exports and a full lift of the US naval blockade on Iranian ports that has been in place since April 13.
More strikingly, Mehr’s version claims the draft calls on the US and its allies to pay Iran war reparations and to fund reconstruction efforts worth at least $300 billion , with Tehran insisting that substantive final negotiations can’t begin until half its frozen funds are released, oil sanctions are lifted, and the naval blockade ends.
Pressed on Iran’s apparent foot-dragging, Trump remained undeterred, asserting his belief that Iran’s supreme leader had personally signed off on the agreement.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he’d spoken with Trump, who reportedly reaffirmed that any final deal would still require Iran to give up its enriched nuclear material and dismantle its missile program , directly at odds with Tehran’s stated position.
Netanyahu, for his part, used the moment to reiterate his longstanding red line: that Iran will not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons on his watch.
With both sides publicizing starkly different versions of the same draft text, the coming days are likely to determine whether Trump’s promised signing ceremony materializes, or whether these fundamental disagreements over enrichment, Hormuz, and sanctions relief prove difficult to paper over.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
Despite Trump’s confident claims that a US-Iran deal is essentially done, Tehran and Washington are publicly describing fundamentally different drafts.
Iran insists on keeping its uranium enrichment rights, retaining its enriched stockpile, and controlling Hormuz shipping traffic, while Trump claims Iran agreed to surrender that material and dismantle its missiles.
Until these core contradictions are resolved, any “signing” announcement should be treated with caution rather than as a done deal.
