Skip to content
You can now search across every topic, entity and event.What's new
Iran Conflict 2026
15JUN

Iran and US publish two different deals

3 min read
11:40UTC

Iran's security council framed the unsigned memorandum as a 10-point Iranian victory including enrichment rights, while the US text demands Iran surrender its enriched uranium first.

ConflictDeveloping
Key takeaway

Iran's security council published a victory text the US version directly contradicts, leaving the uranium item unresolved.

Iran's Supreme National Security Council, the SNSC, the body that co-ordinates Iran's defence and foreign policy under the Supreme Leader, issued a statement framing the unsigned war-ending memorandum as a 10-point Iranian victory, including a recognised right to enrich uranium and a US non-aggression guarantee. 1 The deputy secretary, Ali Bagheri Kani, told Euronews in Farsi on 27 May that Iran's stockpile of Highly Enriched Uranium, HEU, the weapons-usable material at the core of the dispute, is "not on the agenda". 2 The US text lists HEU disposal as the first priority of the 60-day window.

Tehran and Washington are now publishing incompatible versions of the same accord, an advance on the earlier three-party contradiction over nuclear terms : a formal SNSC document that sells the deal domestically as enrichment recognised and sanctions lifted, the mirror image of what Washington describes. Trump told reporters he was "not in a rush" and wanted "a couple of days" before signing. 3

Trump has barred Russia and China from holding the uranium and named no replacement custodian , so the one item both texts must resolve has no agreed location. The deadlock is structural: Trump needs uranium removal to satisfy his domestic constituency, and Khamenei needs enrichment recognised to justify 90 days of war, so each side requires its own script. A reader inside either government can now point to an official version that says the opposite of the other's, and a deal cannot be signed off two contradictory texts without one side conceding in public.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Both Iran and the United States say they are close to an agreement to stop fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But on 29 May each government published a different description of what they think the deal says. Iran's Supreme National Security Council (its top security body) called it a ten-point Iranian victory that includes the right to keep enriching uranium. The US text says Iran's highly enriched uranium (the most dangerous kind, usable in a weapon) must be dealt with first, as the number-one priority. A deal cannot be signed if the two sides are publicly describing it in opposite ways. One of them has to accept the other's version, or they have to agree on new language that neither government has to openly take back. That is what Pakistan is now trying to arrange as the sole mediator.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

Trump's decision to bar Russia and China as HEU custodians on 27 May removed the one sequencing bridge between the US Phase 1 demand and Iran's Phase 2 deferral. Without a named third-country custodian, the HEU disposal clause has no operational content: both sides can notionally agree that HEU must be addressed without agreeing where it goes or when. That ambiguity allows each government to claim its text is operative.

The SNSC's institutional role amplifies the contradiction. Unlike Araghchi's foreign ministry, the SNSC answers directly to the Supreme Leader and publishes with his implicit authority.

A statement framing enrichment as 'recognised' in a ten-point victory document cannot be quietly withdrawn without the Supreme Leader's visible endorsement of a different text. Mojtaba Khamenei's 21 May directive converting the HEU stockpile into a sovereignty asset set the floor that the SNSC document formalises.

What could happen next?
  • Risk

    The SNSC's published ten-point framing binds the Supreme Leader to an enrichment-recognised outcome, making any final Iranian concession on HEU disposal a public climb-down that hardline bloc can weaponise domestically.

  • Consequence

    Trump's barring of Russia and China as custodians leaves the HEU clause with no operational content, enabling both sides to agree in principle while indefinitely deferring the mechanism.

First Reported In

Update #112 · Treasury opens a second Iran sanctions front

CNN Arabic· 30 May 2026
Read original
Different Perspectives
G7 Leaders (ex-US)
G7 Leaders (ex-US)
Kananaskis ended without a joint communique for the first time in the body's history; Macron credited G7 pressure with speeding the ceasefire while Trump publicly denied the summit played any role. The split between US and European G7 partners over what the memorandum means for sanctions relief was the direct cause of the text failure.
Protection-and-Indemnity insurers
Protection-and-Indemnity insurers
London-based P&I mutual clubs declined to underwrite Hormuz crossings while the IRGC Strait Authority remained operational, making the passage commercially impassable regardless of the memorandum's terms. Shipping operators said they would wait weeks for on-water conditions to change before routing tankers through.
IRGC Persian Gulf Strait Authority
IRGC Persian Gulf Strait Authority
P&I mutual insurers declined to underwrite Hormuz crossings on 15-16 June while the IRGC's Strait Authority remained in operation, reducing actual transits to two vessels against a pre-war daily rate of 94. The corps' revenue-generating toll mechanism, created 5 May and collecting $1.5-2 million per VLCC in crypto, has not been stood down and cannot be dissolved by Ghalibaf's signature.
Israeli Cabinet
Israeli Cabinet
Netanyahu admitted he had not seen the memorandum's text but confirmed IDF forces would stay in southern Lebanon; Finance Minister Smotrich called for ten Beirut buildings destroyed per Hezbollah drone and National Security Minister Ben-Gvir said the agreement 'does not bind us in any way'. Israel signed nothing in Islamabad and is the central unresolved variable in the Lebanon clause.
Iranian Majlis hardliners
Iranian Majlis hardliners
Around 60 MPs signed a letter demanding Ghalibaf explain the memorandum; Paydari faction MP Sabeti said the deal violates the Supreme Leader's red lines, and MP Aboutorabi argued the document carries binding obligations 'that cannot be resolved by simply changing the name'. President Pezeshkian defended the negotiators against accusations of betrayal, confirming the fracture inside Iran's political class.
US Vice President JD Vance
US Vice President JD Vance
Vance signed on 15 June and said the memorandum was 'not conditioned on Israel withdrawing from Lebanon' while also saying it 'envisioned a ceasefire that covers both Iran and Lebanon'. The two formulations are incompatible and hand Iran's foreign minister a ready-made violation claim before Geneva.