WASHINGTON, D.C. — US negotiators are working to quickly release the text of the agreement between Washington and Tehran, even as they downplay the significance of the specific language in the document, US officials told CNN .
The officials described the text of the agreement as incredibly vague, mainly intended to create a more favorable environment for the highly technical, in-person talks to come. They added that the framework is aimed at providing Iran the ability to sell it politically to their internal audience .
Additionally, the officials said that the text of the memorandum of understanding — which Vice President JD Vance told CNN Monday is one-and-a-half pages long — didn’t reflect critical back-channel commitments Iran has made to the US, which they argued gave them more confidence in signing on to the arrangement .
“People shouldn’t read too much into the language of the MOU,” one of the officials said, describing the agreement as a “political document” . “What’s more important than the actual document is the understandings we have with each other, and that’s why it’s important to get it done, that we can create the environment to go and talk about all these things, because it basically says we will release sanctions, we will do a deal with nuclear, we will unfreeze funds. But we’ll release sanctions when, you know, based on progress. We’ll release funds once we’ve agreed on the mechanisms to do so” .
The official added that the president’s team of negotiators “came up with language that allows (Iran) to say what they need to say for their domestic politics” .
However, that dynamic risks severe backlash to the Trump administration back home. Officials have worked for months to come to an agreement with Iran, looking to end a deeply unpopular war without a clear endgame that has sent gas prices skyrocketing. Already, conservative hawks have been demanding to see the framework, suspicious that President Donald Trump and his administration gave away too much in the name of ending the war .
The text of the agreement does not describe in specific detail what commitments Iran has made on its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, according to a person who saw the text and described it to CNN, even though Trump and other officials have insisted the US will oversee its destruction. Instead, the agreement states in broad terms that Iran “reiterates that it will never produce nuclear weapons,” a commitment Tehran also made in the 2015 nuclear deal with the Obama administration .
However, US officials argued that Iran has “backchanneled” to the US that they will offer the concessions the Trump administration is looking for. That includes US involvement in the destruction of the enriched materials on site in coordination with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The officials said such a concession is not stated explicitly in the document .
By contrast, the text does spell out in some detail what financial relief Iran can expect if it fulfills its commitments, including the ability to tap into a $300 billion development fund in the future, according to the officials. Both Trump and Vance have been adamant that the fund will not be financed by American dollars .
The text is less clear about the unfreezing of Iranian assets, saying only that they will be released and made “fully available” when progress is made during further rounds of negotiations, without spelling out a timeline .
The agreement also specifies Iran will be able to sell its oil and petrochemical products as soon as the memorandum of understanding is signed, and that the US will issue sanction waivers to allow it to reap financial benefit from the sales .
Asked about the sanction waivers, a US official called the agreement “performance-based,” and said Iran would “only access any benefits of the MOU if they abide by all of the points they agreed to, including no nuclear weapon, neutralizing its enriched material, and not interfering with the free flow of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz” .
