US officials downplay text of the Iran agreement, saying it doesn’t account for back-channel commitments

By Alayna Treene, Kevin Liptak, CNN

(CNN) — 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,” the same official said. “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.”

But 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.”

While the US has not released the text of the deal publicly, copies of the agreement have been circulating among European and other G7 officials gathered in France for this week’s Group of 7 summit, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Leaders have pressed Trump for clarity on certain points during meetings held in the alpine resort Évian-les-Bains.

The secrecy surrounding the text of the agreement has drawn blowback even from some of Trump’s allies, who have questioned why a framework that has already been signed must remain under wraps. Publicly, Vance has said the US wants to release the agreement, but that there was “diplomatic procedure” at play and Iran and mediating countries wanted to “sequence” the “roll out.”

“The Qataris and the Pakistanis have been mediating this entire negotiation with the Iranians, and they’ve asked us effectively to sequence the way that we roll this out,” he told Fox News on Tuesday.

In private, some Trump officials are eager to release the text of the agreement to the public, the sources said, but have given Iran leeway to allow their internal processes to proceed.

“We want the text to be out there. They asked us to wait until Friday to put it out, but we’re asking if we could put it out sooner, and we might be able to do that, which is what we’re trying to do,” one of the US officials said.

One of the complicating factors revolves around Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. He has given his tacit approval of the memorandum of understanding, the officials said, and there are internal discussions over whether he could issue a statement ahead of Friday’s formal, in-person signing ceremony in Switzerland. Releasing the text publicly could complicate efforts toward releasing a statement, according to officials.

Trump, meanwhile, told reporters Tuesday he was waiting for a “formal setting” to release the document publicly, but claimed he was so proud of the material that he could recite it word-by-word in front of cameras.

He also claimed that the next round of talks to resolve sticking points would be “easier” than the initial round. One Trump administration official described that next phase, the “highly technical” talks, as a trial period for Iran.

The 60-day window, which will involve in-person talks between US and Iranian delegations beginning this Friday, will give Trump officials time to determine how serious Iran is about honoring their commitments and the nuclear concessions they are willing to make.

“We’re more focused on the long-term of getting the deal,” one of the officials said, “which is more the substance and building the trust, which is more important than managing the narrative.”

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