The President of the United States, Donald Trump, announced this Saturday that the preliminary agreement with Iran will be signed on Sunday and that, after the signing, the Strait of Hormuz will be reopened.
"The agreement is scheduled to be signed tomorrow and immediately after the signing the Strait of Hormuz will be open to all," Trump said on his social media.
The US leader stressed that the text stipulates that Iran will be prevented from possessing nuclear weapons "neither by buying them, nor developing them, nor in any other way" and contrasted this scenario with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal reached in 2015, which, in his words, was "an easy, nice and comfortable path to a nuclear weapon," a responsibility he attributed to Barack Obama.
"My deal with Iran is the exact opposite: a wall to the nuclear weapon!" he remarked. He also maintained that "Iran no longer wants nuclear weapons" and argued that "our relationship with Iran is very different and better than what previous administrations had."
The current occupant of the Oval Office accused Obama and his then-vice president and successor, Joe Biden, of having "paid hundreds of billions of dollars" to Iran, including "1.7 billion dollars in cash." In contrast, he stressed that now "there will be no money changing hands."
In another message, Trump warned that "at the appropriate time, when everything calms down, we will go and get the nuclear dust that is buried under the granite mountains thanks to our beautiful B-2 bombers and their brilliant pilots (...) and it will be reduced and destroyed in Iran or in the United States."
The president also reiterated that he has maintained "for a long time" his willingness to "collaborate" with Iran within the framework of the situation in the Middle East. "We hope this process works quickly, easily and comfortably. If not, we have the ultimate alternative which we hope will never be used again!" he warned.
In parallel, the Government of Pakistan, the main mediator between Washington and Tehran, announced this Saturday that both countries will proceed to "digitally" sign the preliminary agreement this Sunday, despite the fact that Iranian authorities have rejected this timeline and place the signing "in the coming days."
In this regard, the Iranian Executive has denied that the document will be signed this Sunday and has reiterated that it will be closed "in the coming days". "The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (...) will not be signed tomorrow. We will have to wait to know the exact date of the signing," said the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Esmaeil Baqaei, cited by public television IRIB.
Baqaei has clarified that "it cannot be ruled out that it will happen in the coming days," although he has asked for prudence: "we must be cautious when making comments due to the other party's reservations about this process."
The Iranian representative has reiterated that the text "focuses on the end of the war and for the moment it has been decided not to address the nuclear issue."
The draft agreement under discussion between the United States and Iran contemplates a period of 60 days of additional talks on the Iranian nuclear program and the future of the Strait of Hormuz, among other pending issues.