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Washington: A deal to end the war in Iran is being negotiated this weekend and is on the verge of being signed, US President Donald Trump said, as prominent Washington war hawks publicly pleaded with him to reject the peace plan and resume bombing.
Vice President JD Vance returned to Washington and headed to the White House on Saturday afternoon (US time), as did Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, amid reports the US and Iran were on the cusp of agreeing on a road map to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and start negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.
Amid the intense speculation, Trump said at 4.30pm (6.30am AEST) that he had discussed a memorandum of understanding with the leaders of America’s Gulf allies, as well as Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey and Jordan.
“An agreement has been largely negotiated, subject to finalisation between the United States of America, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the various other countries, as listed,” Trump said on social media.
He added that he had a separate call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “went very well”.
“Final aspects and details of the deal are currently being discussed, and will be announced shortly,” Trump said. “In addition to many other elements of the agreement, the Strait of Hormuz will be opened.”
But it would not be the first time Trump has announced a deal to end the war or the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, only for that not to eventuate. He proclaimed on April 17 that Iran had agreed to open the strait and surrender its stockpiles of enriched uranium.
As word of an impending deal spread on Saturday, several prominent Republicans urged Trump to reject the peace plan and resume military action against Iran, arguing he would be squandering the gains of the initial military campaign.
Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina who was one of the key cheerleaders for the war, said a deal that was seen to allow Iran to survive and potentially control the Strait of Hormuz in the future would shift the balance of power toward Tehran and be a “nightmare” for Israel.
“Also, it makes one wonder why the war started to begin with,” Graham said on X.
Roger Wicker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said extending the ceasefire another 60 days would be a disaster. “Everything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury would be for naught!”
Iran also affirmed that a deal was nearing. Its foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said the country was working to finalise a memorandum of understanding that would end the war, while deferring talks about Iran’s nuclear program, according to state-run media.
“We know that our nuclear issue has been a pretext for two wars against the Iranian people, but we responsibly and wisely decided to prioritise and focus at this stage on an issue that is urgent for all of us, which is ending the war on all fronts – including Lebanon, I emphasise,” the Islamic Republic News Agency quoted him saying.
The possible breakthrough came after Trump announced that he would not attend his son’s wedding in the Bahamas this weekend and cancelled a planned trip to his New Jersey golf club to return to Washington.
The war began on February 28 with joint US-Israeli air strikes inflicting significant damage on Iran’s navy, air force, weapons stocks and defence industrial base. A ceasefire that began on April 8 is still in effect.
Aaron David Miller, a veteran Middle East adviser and former State Department negotiator, said if the agreement was real it would do the one thing required, “which is to buy time and space to deal with the complexity of issues, none of which I suspect have been closed in a one-page framework agreement”.
Those outstanding matters include the future of Iran’s highly enriched uranium, other uranium stockpiles, its centrifuges, frozen Iranian assets, sanctions and Iran’s proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“We’re a long way away from what I would consider to be anything that remotely resembles a formal agreement on any of the issues,” said Miller, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Danny Citrinowicz, an Iran analyst at the Israel-based Institute for National Security Studies and a former Iran specialist for Israel’s military intelligence unit, said it was evident the Gulf states feared Iran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz and did not trust the US to protect them.
“If the campaign ends under these conditions, Iran’s deterrence against the Gulf states will not weaken but will instead be strengthened,” he said.
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