Agreement between US and Iran could take days, says US official

It may take several more days before the memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran is finalized, a senior American official said, citing a protracted process to gain Iranian approval on the document's drafting.

Although US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that a deal was imminent, US officials sought to temper expectations that he could announce it this weekend.

The time required will depend on how quickly Iran responds to some of the wording changes made by the United States, the official said.

Although the US believes that Iran has agreed, in principle, with the main points of the agreement, there continues to be an exchange of proposals on the wording of the text, which, according to the official, requires a long approval process on the Iranian side. The official said the United States is still fine-tuning the language on "some points."

Once all parties reach a final agreement, an in-person signing ceremony between U.S. and Iranian officials is expected to take place, possibly immediately followed by a round of negotiations on the next phase of the agreement.

Remember how the war in Iran began
On February 28, United States President Donald Trump announced a "large-scale" attack on Iran, stating that the country's main objective was to "defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime."

These threats, he said, included Tehran's nuclear program - a recurring point of friction that has also hampered more recent negotiations to end the fighting.

The joint attacks by the US and Israel against Iran - which resulted in the death of the then supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - caused thousands of deaths across the country and damage to dozens of museums, historic buildings and cultural sites, according to Iranian media outlets and authorities.

In response, Iran launched a series of retaliatory attacks across the Middle East and effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which about 20% of the world's oil passes.

Weeks before the start of the war, the Trump administration carried out the largest military buildup in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

At the same time, US envoys held regular talks with Iran about a possible new nuclear deal. But those negotiations were unable to avert military action, with Trump accusing Iran at the time of rejecting "all opportunities to renounce its nuclear ambitions."

The outbreak of war in February also followed mass anti-regime protests in Iran the previous month, fueled by economic discontent amid skyrocketing costs.

Understand why the US cannot protect the Strait of Hormuz

Source: CNN