Skip to content
Welcome, thoughtbot's Giant Robots listeners!Start here
Iran Conflict 2026
17OCT

Iran and US publish two different deals

3 min read
18:37UTC

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
International Energy Agency
International Energy Agency
G7 members agreed on 2 October to release up to 100 million barrels through the IEA over four months, front-loading diesel.
China
China
China signed the 15 October text reaffirming the Resolution 2216 arms embargo on the Houthis. The Wall Street Journal reported that Conflict Armament Research found Chinese parts in a Houthi copy of Iran's Kheibarshekan missile.
Russia
Russia
Russia joined the 15 October consensus condemning the Houthis, a month after vetoing a mandate for a UN panel of experts on Iran sanctions on 17 September. One Western official told Bloomberg that Moscow is providing Iran with missiles, and the White House rejected the assessment.
India
India
National Security Adviser Ajit Doval raised seafarer safety with Mohsen Rezaei on 12 October, after a drone hit the Petro Dolphin with 11 Indians aboard at Sohar. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar urged that attacks on commercial shipping and seafarers be avoided.
Lebanon
Lebanon
President Joseph Aoun met UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix in Beirut on 14 October as UNIFIL winds down before its mandate ends on 31 December. Two days later Qatar's prime minister pledged in Beirut to fund a solar plant for Lebanon.
Kataib Hezbollah
Kataib Hezbollah
The militia announced a halt to operations except against "hostile aircraft" and denied any disarmament deal with Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi. A day later Quds Force chief Esmail Qaani urged eliminating "remaining traces of the US presence in other arenas".

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.