What’s in the proposed deal that could end the US-Iran conflict?

By Tim Lister, Frederik Pleitgen and Aida Karimi, CNN

(CNN) — Iran and the United States have reached a tentative agreement to turn the existing ceasefire into a more long-lasting settlement, US officials said Thursday.

However, President Donald Trump hasn’t signed off on the proposal. It is also not clear whether Iran’s supreme leader has given his approval, believed to be another necessary step toward ending the conflict. Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency, citing unnamed sources close to the negotiating team, reported later Thursday that the text of the agreement “has not yet been finalized or made definitive.”

The tentative deal comes as the situation in the region remains tense. The US carried out new strikes in Iran early Thursday, targeting a site that posed a threat to US forces and commercial traffic, according to a US official.

A “memorandum of understanding” between the two sides would include language lifting constraints on the Strait of Hormuz, allowing unrestricted navigation by vessels and lifting of a US blockade on Iran’s ports.

It would also start a 60-day negotiation period to address Iran’s nuclear program, including the fate of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Sources said the most difficult issues related to Iran’s nuclear program still have to be worked out as part of those talks.

Here’s what we know about some of the key issues at stake.

The Strait of Hormuz

Trump wrote in a social media post late Saturday that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen under the memorandum.

Multiple Iranian media outlets, some of them close to the hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported Sunday that the critical waterway would remain under Iranian supervision. Over a period of 30 days, Iran would allow shipping to return to pre-war levels.

Iran is demanding that the US blockade on its ports be lifted at the same time. The memorandum will call for US military forces to withdraw from the vicinity of Iran as well as the end of the blockade, according to a report Wednesday by the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).

Tehran has slightly shifted its tone on collecting tolls from ships that pass through the strait.

“We are not seeking to collect tolls — services are provided; navigation services plus necessary measures to protect the environment of the Strait of Hormuz,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Monday.

Iran appears to be signaling that while it may allow commercial traffic to return to pre-war volumes, it still intends to maintain a greater degree of control over passage through the strait than existed before the conflict.

“Military ships are not included in this commitment” to reopen the strait, IRIB said Wednesday.

Iran has insisted that management of the strait has nothing to do with the United States but would be coordinated with Oman, Baghaei said Monday. That’s a condition repeated by other Iranian officials since.

On Thursday morning, explosions were heard east of Bandar Abbas, a strategic Iranian port city and naval base near the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency reported.

The US military executed the fresh strikes to target a site that posed a threat to US forces and commercial traffic, a US official said.

The US also intercepted drones being launched from Iran, the official added.

Iran’s uranium stocks and enrichment

Iranian officials have insisted that negotiations about uranium can only begin once agreement is reached on a memorandum ending the war. Uranium is a key nuclear fuel that can be used to build a nuclear bomb if enriched to high levels.

Fars News Agency said Sunday that “Iran has made no commitments in this agreement regarding handing over nuclear stockpiles, removing equipment, closing facilities, or even pledging not to build a nuclear bomb.”

Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was on the cards when a Tehran delegation met Qatari mediators for “generally positive” talks in Doha on Monday, according to Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency.

Trump has repeatedly insisted that one way or another, Iran will have to relinquish its more than 440 kilograms (970 pounds) of highly enriched uranium. Much of it is thought to have been buried by US airstrikes last year.

Officials in Washington have been using the refrain, “No dust, no dollars,” to describe the stock of highly enriched uranium that Trump demands must be disposed of before meeting Tehran’s financial demands.

On Monday, the US president claimed that Iran’s enriched uranium “will either be immediately turned over” to the United States for destruction or be destroyed on-site or at another location.

The initial memorandum is not expected to cover enrichment in any detail, and finding a way to bridge the two sides’ differences will be one of the major challenges of a comprehensive deal. Trump has cited Iran’s nuclear program as a key reason for the attack and previously said that a suspension of uranium enrichment for 20 years would be acceptable.

Iran’s frozen assets

With its economy in deep trouble, Iran is demanding the immediate unfreezing of billions of dollars in assets held in banks overseas.

“At the very beginning of this process, the status of releasing the blocked assets must be clarified,” Baghaei said Saturday.

If Tehran and Washington agree to the memorandum, $24 billion worth of Iranian assets could be released, Tasnim said Tuesday. Half that sum could be released when the deal is first announced, the news agency added.

Citing an “informed source,” Tasnim reported Sunday that “without the release of a specific portion of Iran’s blocked assets in this very first step — along with a clear mechanism for the guaranteed, continued release of all blocked assets — there will be no agreement.”

But a senior US administration official told CNN on Sunday that the unfreezing of Iranian assets would occur only once the Strait of Hormuz has reopened.

The US has given no commitment on how these assets, which are held in several foreign banks, would be returned to Iran.

Sanctions

Iran’s economy is also suffering from a huge array of international sanctions, most of them imposed by the US and Europe.

“Lifting sanctions will not be discussed in this short timeframe,” Baghaei said Saturday.

“Details must be negotiated after the memorandum is finalized,” he added, suggesting that the suspension of sanctions will be linked to the nuclear issue.

Iran estimates removal of sanctions on oil sales alone could generate nearly $10 billion in revenue for the government over a 60-day period, Fars News Agency reported.

As with Iran’s frozen assets, sanctions imposed on Iran will only be lifted once the Strait of Hormuz is open and fully functioning again, a US official told CNN.

Ballistic missiles

During the conflict, US officials said that Iran’s longer-range ballistic missiles must be destroyed. Trump said that its “conventional ballistic missile program was growing rapidly and dramatically.” But there has been less talk recently of including the missile arsenal in the broader negotiations, even though Israel and Arab states in the Persian Gulf see it as an urgent risk.

Lebanon

It’s also unclear how or whether the conflict between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon will be addressed in any memorandum. Tasnim reported Sunday that the memo would demand “the declaration of the end of war on all fronts, including Lebanon.”

Baghaei, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said similarly on Monday, “Stopping the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, will be one of the elements of the possible understanding.”

But on Tuesday, an Israeli source told CNN that forces will “expand operations” in Lebanon and “renew operations” in the capital, Beirut, weeks after hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah flared again following the US-Israeli strikes on Tehran in late February.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also hardened his rhetoric, warning on Monday that the military would “intensify the blows” and “increase the force” of its campaign in Lebanon.

Earlier this month, both Israeli and Lebanese delegations agreed to extend a tenuous truce — to which Hezbollah is not party — by 45 days. Under the terms of the US-led deal, Israel is permitted to conduct “defensive” operations.

In recent days, the Trump administration has doubled down on its support for the Israeli campaign. The US president told Netanyahu he supports the country’s wish to “maintain freedom of action against threats on all fronts, including Lebanon,” an Israeli official told CNN.

In a call with Netanyahu on Saturday evening, Trump “reiterated his support for this principle,” the official said.

Ultimately, Iran insists it is ready for a “fair and balanced deal,” an Iranian source told CNN on Sunday. “The most important thing for us is that the war must end for good in the whole Middle East.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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CNN’s Tal Shalev contributed to this report.