{"id":690919,"date":"2026-05-24T05:55:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T05:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/690919\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T05:55:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T05:55:13","slug":"iran-war-deal-donald-trump-says-agreement-to-end-conflict-and-reopen-strait-of-hormuz-is-near","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/690919\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran war deal: Donald Trump says agreement to end conflict and reopen Strait of Hormuz is near"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Updated May 24, 2026 \u2014 1:54pm,first published May 24, 2026 \u2014 7:17am<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n

\"TrumpTrump returned to Washington for the long weekend instead of attending his son\u2019s wedding or going to his golf club.AP Photo\/Alex Brandon<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Gulf allies, as well as Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey and Jordan.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn 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,\u201d Trump said on social media.<\/p>\n

He added that he had a separate call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that \u201cwent very well\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinal aspects and details of the deal are currently being discussed, and will be announced shortly,\u201d Trump said. \u201cIn addition to many other elements of the agreement, the Strait of Hormuz will be opened.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it would not be the first time Trump has announced that hostilities would end, and the strait would reopen, only for that not to eventuate. He proclaimed on April 17 that Iran had agreed to fully open the strait and surrender its stockpiles of enriched uranium.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 towards Tehran and be a \u201cnightmare\u201d for Israel.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Tulsi<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, it makes one wonder why the war started to begin with,\u201d Graham said on X.<\/p>\n

Roger Wicker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said extending the ceasefire another 60 days would be a disaster. \u201cEverything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury would be for naught!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Pompeo, who in Trump\u2019s first term served as CIA director and then secretary of state, said the deal sounded like it was put together by members of Joe Biden\u2019s administration and was \u201cnot remotely America First\u201d.<\/p>\n

That earned a strong rebuke from White House communications director Steven Cheung. \u201cMike Pompeo has no idea what the f— he\u2019s talking about,\u201d Cheung said on X. \u201cHe should shut his stupid mouth and leave the real work to the professionals. He\u2019s not read into anything that\u2019s happening, so how would he know.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were mixed signals from Iran as to the deal at play. 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\u2019s nuclear program, according to state-run news agency IRNA.<\/p>\n

But Iranian military spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaghari said the status of the Strait of Hormuz was not a matter for the American government or countries in the south of the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe determine whether the strait is open or closed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s semi-official Fars News Agency said Trump\u2019s claims about the strait reopening \u201cdiverged from reality\u201d and that it would \u201ccontinue to be under Iran\u2019s management\u201d.<\/p>\n

Pakistan continues to play a key mediating role in the talks, and language from the country\u2019s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, suggested a deal was still some way off.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"US<\/a><\/p>\n

He described Saturday\u2019s call as \u201ca useful opportunity to exchange views on the current regional situation and how to move the ongoing peace efforts forward to bring lasting peace in the region\u201d. Pakistan hoped to host the next round of peace talks soon, he added.<\/p>\n

The possible breakthrough came after Trump announced he would not attend his son\u2019s wedding in the Bahamas this weekend and cancelled a planned trip to his New Jersey golf club to return to Washington.<\/p>\n

The war began on February 28 with joint US-Israeli air strikes inflicting significant damage on Iran\u2019s navy, air force, weapons stocks and defence industrial base. A ceasefire that began on April 8 is still in effect.<\/p>\n

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, \u201cwhich 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\u201d.<\/p>\n

Those outstanding matters include the future of Iran\u2019s highly enriched uranium, other uranium stockpiles, its centrifuges, frozen Iranian assets, sanctions and Iran\u2019s proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a long way away from what I would consider to be anything that remotely resembles a formal agreement on any of the issues,\u201d said Miller, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.<\/p>\n

Danny Citrinowicz, an Iran analyst at the Israel-based Institute for National Security Studies and a former Iran specialist for Israel\u2019s military intelligence unit, said it was evident the Gulf states feared Iran\u2019s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz and did not trust the US to protect them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the campaign ends under these conditions, Iran\u2019s deterrence against the Gulf states will not weaken but will instead be strengthened,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"MichaelMichael Koziol<\/a> is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated May 24, 2026 \u2014 1:54pm,first published May 24, 2026 \u2014 7:17am Save You have reached your maximum…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-690919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}