By Steve Holland and Doina Chiacu
WASHINGTON, June 12 (Reuters) – Negotiators for the United States and Iran are close to the finish line of a deal aimed at ending their three-month war and it could be signed in the coming days, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.
A painstakingly negotiated agreement would include a commitment by Iran to neither develop nor procure nuclear weapons and would reopen the Strait of Hormuz to normal oil traffic and lift the U.S. blockade, the official told reporters.
It would only permit the release of frozen Iranian assets based on whether Iranian leaders meet the requirements laid out for them, the official said.
“If we see them honoring their end of the bargain, it’s going to be very good for Iran, and if we see them not honoring their end of the bargain, then they’re not going to get anything out of it,” the official said.
Iran has offered a starkly different view of the draft proposal with few concessions made to the United States over the nuclear issue and control of the Strait of Hormuz.
The U.S. official dismissed Iran’s version of events, saying this is aimed at the Iranian leaders’ domestic audience.
The memorandum of understanding could be signed in Europe in the next few days but no decision has been made yet on the location, the official said. Once signed, it will begin a 60-day negotiation on the technical aspects of the agreement.
President Donald Trump is traveling to France next week to attend a Group of Seven summit.
“The negotiating team has got us in a very good spot, but let’s see here, we’re not quite at the finish line yet, but we are very close,” the U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told reporters.
TECHNICAL DETAILS STILL TO BE ‘FIGURED OUT’
The official said the terms of the deal accomplish Trump’s core objectives and “gets it in a very, very good place at the end of it.”
The MOU would lead to the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program and Tehran’s highly enriched uranium would be destroyed on site and then taken out of the country, the official said. The terms also include an inspection regime to ensure that it is enforceable in the long term.
Iran is believed to possess about 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium.
Iran, if it complies, will be relieved of economic pressures, including the unfreezing of its assets and sanctions relief, the official added.
“The Iranians don’t get anything upon the signing of the MOU or upon the negotiation itself,” the official said.
“They get rewarded economically for complying with their obligations under the deal. So if they turn over the nuclear material as promised, they’ll get something. If they dismantle their nuclear program or their nuclear facilities, they’ll get something else,” said the official.
The official said the technical aspects of recovering Iran’s nuclear material, including the enriched uranium that was the target of a U.S.-Israeli bombing raid a year ago, will take time to resolve.
“This is very combustible stuff, very volatile stuff, you know. We’re not just going to like go down there with a backhoe and a guy with a backpack and start taking it out. The technical details need to be figured out, but I think there’s a commitment to do that,” the official said.
“There’s also a commitment to dismantling the nuclear weapons program. There’s a commitment to decommissioning the nuclear sites, and of course we’re going to figure out how to do that in the technical negotiations that will follow,” the official said.
(Reporting by Steve Holland, Doina Chiacu and Ismail Shakil; Editing by Caitlin Webber, Michelle Nichols and Sanjeev Miglani)
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