18JUL

Iran and US publish two different deals

3 min read

13:17UTC

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.

← Back to US bombing moves inland as blockade hardens Jump to analysis ↓

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.

Source Landscape

This story draws on mixed-leaning sources from United States and France

United States×2

France

LeftRight

Primary parallel: In the 48 hours before the 2 April 2015 Lausanne JCPOA framework announcement, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif and US Secretary of State Kerry gave incompatible public accounts of whether Iran had agreed to ship its enriched uranium stockpile out of the country. Zarif's press conference on 2 April said no uranium export was agreed; Kerry's statement in the same window said transfer was a commitment.

The two governments then released a joint statement that papered over the contradiction with language vague enough for each side to claim its version. The structural mechanism on 29 May 2026 is identical: both capitals are claiming their version publicly while the Pakistani channel tries to produce language that neither side must explicitly retract .

Counter-parallel: The 1994 Agreed Framework between the US and North Korea used a similar dual-narrative sequence, but the incompatibility proved genuine rather than tactical: Pyongyang's domestic reading of the agreement excluded the plutonium-freeze provisions Washington considered binding, and the disagreement was structural rather than solvable through language.

If the SNSC's published framing reflects Mojtaba Khamenei's actual red line rather than a domestic opener, the Lausanne analogy fails.

Consensus view: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Karim Sadjadpour and the European Council on Foreign Relations' Ali Fathollah-Nejad assess the two published texts as reflecting genuine rather than performative incompatibility: the SNSC's ten-point victory framing was a domestic political commitment directed at the Majlis and the IRGC's hardline bloc, not a negotiating position addressed to Washington.

Once a government publishes an official document claiming enrichment is recognised, it cannot sign a US counter-text that omits that recognition without publicly conceding.

Counter-view: The Beijing-based Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) Iran desk and Turkish diplomat Ahmet Yildiz, writing for the Anatolian Agency, argue that publishing incompatible texts is a standard final-round pressure tactic: both sides are claiming domestic victory to secure internal authorisation for the compromises that a final text will require.

The structural parallel is the 2015 JCPOA sequence, where Iranian and US officials described incompatible outcomes in the final 72 hours before Lausanne.

Key tension: Whether the SNSC document represents Iran's minimum public commitment (below which no Supreme Leader approval is possible) or a domestic-audience maximum position that Araghchi's diplomatic track can quietly modify through Pakistan's channel without requiring a public Iranian climb-down.

First Reported In

Update #112 · Treasury opens a second Iran sanctions front

CNN Arabic· 30 May 2026

Read original →

Causes and effects

Caused by

Three powers tell three uranium stories

The three-party contradictory accounts of the deal's nuclear terms on 23-24 May became a formal two-government contradiction when Iran's SNSC published the 10-point victory framing.

Occurred 24 May 2026

Read story →

Trump vetoes Iran's only uranium exit

Trump barring Russia and China as HEU custodians on 27 May left the deal's hardest item without an agreed location, amplifying the incompatibility of the two published MOU texts.

Occurred 27 May 2026

Read story →

Trump signs nothing, posts three demands

Trump's posted three conditions contradict the SNSC 10-point framing of the unsigned MOU as an Iranian victory, widening the public gap between the two positions.

Occurred 29 May 2026

Read story →

This Event

Iran and US publish two different deals

Two governments now hold official, contradictory texts of the same accord, raising the cost of any concession to a public one.

Led to

Trump edits Iran MOU but signs nothing

Iran's SNSC framing of the unsigned MOU as a 10-point victory is the Iranian position that Trump's revised HEU demand directly contests.

Occurred 1 Jun 2026

Read story →

Trump's pen demands Iran destroy HEU

Iran's SNSC 10-point victory framing of the unsigned MOU on 31 May preceded Trump's hand-edit demanding HEU destruction as a counter-move.

Occurred 31 May 2026

Read story →

Different Perspectives

Jordan

Jordan has not addressed the IRGC's claim that Jordanian civilians and soldiers supplied targeting intelligence for the 20 July Aqaba strike, even as its deputy prime minister received a condemnation call over Iran's earlier missile fire. The base has now produced the war's first confirmed American deaths on Jordanian soil.

CENTCOM

CENTCOM confirmed a third American service member died in northern Iraq on 19 July clearing unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian drone, and recovered unidentified remains at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. The Pentagon has framed its Khuzestan strikes as degrading IRGC capacity, a rationale that stretches to explain a reactor foundation with no nuclear material in it.

Kuwait

Kuwait's military said it was confronting Iranian attacks after the Shuaiba power and desalination complex burned for the second time in two days on 19 July, following an earlier ministry request that households ration water. Roughly 90 per cent of Kuwait's drinking water depends on the same generating units Iran keeps hitting.

IRGC

The IRGC claimed a 21st wave of Operation Nasr-2 struck Aqaba Airport and Azraq on 20 July, destroying hangars and aircraft, and thanked Jordanians for supplying intelligence. No US, Jordanian or Kuwaiti source has confirmed any part of the claim, which Press TV alone carried.

IAEA

The IAEA said it is looking into reports of a 19 July strike on the Darkhovin nuclear plant construction site, confirming inspectors found no nuclear material there on their last visit. Grossi again called for restraint near nuclear sites, a faster response than the four months of silence that followed the disputed Bushehr strike.

Shipping and war-risk insurers

War-risk premiums for Hormuz transits reached 3 to 10 per cent of hull value on 17 July, against 0.25 per cent before the war, as Brent cleared $87 and daily transits fell to eight vessels. Underwriters are pricing the confirmed UKMTO mine near the Traffic Separation Scheme, not the IRGC's unconfirmed 18 July mining claim, which CENTCOM called false.