US, Iran say deal closer than ever, as Pakistan signals final terms are set

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said a “final, agreed upon text of the peace deal has been reached” between the US and Iran.

Sharif made the statement in a post on X, after both US and Iranian officials warned against trusting reports speculating on the details of a new agreement.

“Pakistan is now working closely with both sides to finalize the next steps,” Sharif wrote on X. “Peace has never been this close as it is now.”

Sharif posted shortly after Iranian ⁠Foreign ⁠Minister Abbas Araghchi said a deal had “never been closer”. He added the “media should refrain from entering speculation about its content”.

The message was one of the clearest yet from Iran, indicating an agreement could be imminent. Trump reposted Araghchi’s statement on his Truth Social account.

In a call with reporters, a senior US official cautioned a deal was “not quite at the finish line yet, but we are very close”.

He said the memorandum of understanding would involve “significant” sanctions relief and the unfreezing of Iranian assets, in exchange for Iran agreeing to dismantle its nuclear program and hand over its nuclear material.

However, he said that Iran would not immediately receive anything upon the deal’s signing, and that the lifting of sanctions and release of funds would be contingent on Iranian compliance.

More technical negotiations on several would begin upon the initial deal’s signing, he said.

The official echoed an earlier statement by US Vice President JD Vance, who said that none of Iran’s frozen assets would immediately be released.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei, meanwhile, said that relevant institutions were meeting as they are in the “final stages of summarising the text of the understanding”. He said he could not comment on the time or place of any potential signing.

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Almigdad Alruhaid said the terms must be circulated through several Iranian bodies before a consensus can be reached.

“For them to finalise this draft, this memorandum of understanding, it must be circled in a long list of leadership here, starting from the army headquarters and IRGC, the politicians in the parliament, and after that to the Supreme Leader,” Alruhaid said.

“So that is a long list of leadership here to finalise the deal to reach a consensus agreement within the country,” he said.

Earlier on Friday, Trump had taken aim at reports detailing supposed terms of the agreement, which have not been publicly released.

He appeared to be responding to an IRNA report that outlined seven alleged main points of the deal. The report said no new concessions had been reached on Iran’s nuclear programme and its control of the Strait of Hormuz, adding that the deal would see the immediate unfreezing of some Iranian assets.

A US official pushed back on the characterisation, saying the deal being discussed would see the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear programme, the destruction of nuclear material and the Strait of Hormuz re-opened.

Speaking to Axios news on Friday, Trump said that he still believed the new deal could be signed over the weekend.

He added that Iran had privately “apologised for putting out false information”, according to the report, which noted it was unclear how the message was conveyed.

The latest diplomatic flurry comes after the US and Iran traded two days of strikes this week, threatening to end a pause in fighting that has seen a handful of flare-ups since April 8.

Trump and his allies have repeatedly alternated between threatening Iran and indicating that a breakthrough on a more lasting ceasefire agreement could be near.

On Thursday, Trump threatened to seize Iran’s Kharg island, the hub of its oil exports. Hours later, he said he had called off a third wave of US attacks in anticipation of a possible agreement.

Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett, reporting from Washington, DC, said US officials have said their top demands have not changed as part of the pending deal.

“What the White House is promising is that this agreement will include performance-based components. In other words, Iran’s nuclear programme must be dismantled, the enriched uranium must be disposed of or eliminated, the Strait of Hormuz must be reopened, and there can be no support for regional proxies,” she said.

“Only then, according to a White House official, will there be a release of Iran’s frozen assets,” she said.