US President Donald Trump has signed a tentative peace deal with Iran, which includes the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. A final deal is still set to be negotiated over 60 days, but Trump's signature puts the initial agreement into immediate effect, which includes a $300bn (£224bn) plan for Iran's 'reconstruction'. The US will also stop 'all types of sanctions' on Iran after the president previously warned he would 'bomb the hell' out of Iran if no final deal manifests.
Signing at G7 Summit
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed the document on Wednesday, as confirmed by Tehran, while Trump signed in France at the G7 summit. While in Evian-les-Bains, where the G7 summit took place, Trump said his signing was to stop a 'worldwide depression'. 'I didn't want to see economic catastrophe,' he said, according to the BBC. 'If you kept this going, that could have happened.'
'All I know is every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship. Every time we said something negative, like, guess what, we're not going to be able to settle, it would go down very big,' Trump added.
Iran's Stance
Iran's parliamentary speaker and negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, told state media that Iran's 'finger is on the trigger' as distrust of the US remains. 'If the enemy does not understand the language of logic, we will enter again with the language of power,' he told state broadcaster Fars.
According to initial reports about the deal, an agreement to halt Iran's nuclear programme for good and determine the fate of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium would be expected to be reached within 60 days. Iran has agreed to discuss ways to possibly 'dilute or remove' it, the officials said.
Nuclear Concerns
However, it remains unclear whether Tehran would ultimately agree to its complete removal, with hard-liners opposed to giving it up. Both US intelligence and the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have said that Iran closed down its nuclear weapons development programme in 2003. But according to the IAEA, Tehran has in recent years continued enriching uranium, including to near weapons-grade. All three of the plants where that was happening were hit in the last US strikes on Iran last June.
