US, Iran set for truce, Hormuz set to reopen

A senior US official said President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance both virtually signed the agreement to end a US blockade of Iranian ports, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and start 60 days of nuclear negotiations.

Trump, who is in France for the G7 summit, suggested he won’t attend a formal signing ceremony on Friday in Switzerland.

Details unclear: No text has been released yet, with Trump saying it will likely be publicly released after the signing ceremony. Both sides have offered differing accounts on key issues, including the Strait of Hormuz. Iran intends to collect certain “fees” in the critical waterway, while Trump said it would fully reopen Friday without tolls.

In Lebanon: Israel said its forces are not withdrawing from southern Lebanon, even though Pakistan announced the agreement includes an end to the conflict there. A US official said the agreement does not require a withdrawal.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Monday a memorandum of understanding with the US represents an important step toward ending the war and beginning negotiations, but he stressed that a final agreement has not yet been completed.

“The agreement reached is a significant step towards halting the war and initiating negotiations, and a final agreement has not yet been formalized,” Pezeshkian wrote Monday in a series of posts on X.

He said the Islamic Republic has prepared “for all options” and that the government’s focus, “with or without an agreement,” would remain serving the Iranian people.

Pezeshkian said the memorandum was the result of “months of discussions and continuous follow-ups.” If its provisions are properly implemented, it “can be considered an honorable document for the country,” he added.

Earlier reports said US and Iran have reached an agreement that will end a US blockade of Iranian ports, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and begin 60 days of nuclear negotiations.

The text of the memorandum of understanding between the two countries will be released publicly. US President Donald Trump said it would come “pretty soon” but likely after a formal signing ceremony on Friday, while a senior Trump administration official said it would be put out in the next 24 to 48 hours.

Here is what we know — and don’t know — about the key issues at stake:

Strait of Hormuz

The US said the strait would reopen after the agreement is signed on Friday, with Trump declaring that passage through the waterway would be “permanently toll free.”

But two semi-official Iranian news agencies reported Monday that while Tehran will allow free transit for the 60-day window in which further negotiations will take place, it plans to impose fees after that period. Fars News Agency said Iran “intends to benefit financially from commercial shipping traffic through the Strait.”

Safety considerations will also impact the timing of any reopening. CNN has previously reported that Iran has laid mines in the strait, and negotiators will need to reach agreements on how to remove them.

Ceasefire

Pakistan, which brokered the agreement, said both sides have “declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.”

However, the agreement does not include a requirement that Israel withdraw from Lebanon, a senior US official said on Monday. Israel, which is not party to the agreement, reiterated that its forces are not withdrawing from Lebanon.

The US will keep its current force posture in the Middle East during US-Iran technical negotiations, with a planned reduction if a final deal is reached, a senior US administration official said.

Nuclear issues

The US said Iran made assurances that it would never get a nuclear weapon. But there are no concrete commitments around Iran’s nuclear program or its uranium stockpiles. That can has been kicked down the road.

Sanctions and frozen funds

Iran said the 60-day nuclear negotiations will begin only after the US releases billions of dollars of frozen funds. But a US official said no money would be released without clear commitments by Iran.

The economy

Oil prices fell to their lowest levels in three months on the announcement but remain around $10 a barrel above their pre-war levels. A broader economic recovery will likely take months.

A senior US administration official told reporters Monday that Oman was “duplicitous” during negotiating efforts with Iran — so they “threw them out” of the mediation role.

“We were very unhappy with the job the Omanis did. We felt they were very duplicitous and almost like employees of the Iranians in the way that they maneuvered, so we kind of threw them out of this process,” the official said.

It’s the latest sign of the Trump administration’s disapproval of a country that has historically been a key interlocutor for the US in the Middle East. In recent weeks, the administration threatened both sanctions and military actions against Oman.

The senior administration official said one of the challenges in negotiating with Iran was establishing “the right channels of communication with the Iranian regime.” They noted that “the old way” involved the supreme leader giving directions to Iran’s National Security Council, through “the political class” and then through Oman.

“We wanted to figure out what the new channels would be to communicate with, and obviously we decided on Pakistan and Qatar,” the official said.

They also noted that the “political mechanism” that had been used in the past “was mostly disabled” because of actions at the start of the war and “most people were hiding in bunkers,” so that also made communication challenging. A number of high-level Iranian figures were killed at the start of the war.