Vice-President JD Vance was named to sign the Iran memorandum in Geneva in person and parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf to sign remotely from Tehran, yet the White House Presidential Actions register, the official log of US executive instruments, carried nothing on Iran past 12 June1. Four US Air Force C-17 transport aircraft had left for Europe on Thursday carrying equipment for Vance's possible travel. Qatari negotiators flew to Tehran on Sunday morning to close the remaining gaps.
Donald Trump said the memorandum of understanding (MoU) would be signed Sunday and the strait of Hormuz would reopen immediately. The register told the other half of the story: no executive order, no memorandum, no proclamation on Iran, its most recent entries a Flag Day proclamation and a homeownership-month notice2. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran had not taken a final decision and a signing might come in the days ahead, not Sunday.
This is the third weekend a signing has been named and not delivered. Trump touted an unsigned memorandum on 12 June and claimed highest-level Iranian approval from an approver unreachable at deal speed. The same day, four principals gave four contradictory accounts of where the deal stood. The pattern has held: the closer the ceremony gets, the more its moving parts are described and the longer the paper stays blank. The difference this weekend is that the parts are physical, planes and shuttle diplomacy rather than statements, which is why the slip reads as friction rather than vapour.
