{"id":467321,"date":"2026-05-26T06:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T06:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/467321\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T06:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T06:30:13","slug":"iran-denies-deal-with-us-is-imminent-despite-some-progress-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/467321\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran denies deal with US is imminent despite some progress \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran <\/a>has poured cold water on suggestions that a deal with the US <\/a>is imminent, pointing to the confusion in US positions and Israeli <\/a>interference as key factors in why a complete agreement is proving difficult to secure.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the weekly foreign ministry press briefing, Esmail Baghaei, the spokesperson for Iran\u2019s negotiating team, also said future management of the strait of Hormuz was a matter for Oman and Iran to reach agreement on, and that it was not tolls that were being proposed but \u201cfees for navigational services\u201d.<\/p>\n

Referring to the state of the talks, Baghaei said: \u201cIt is correct to say that we have reached a conclusion on a large portion of the issues under discussion. But to say that this means the signing of an agreement is imminent \u2013 no one can make such a claim.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also insisted that a ceasefire in Lebanon had to be included in the memorandum of understanding that would lead to Iran allowing commercial shipping through the strait, and the US lifting its blockade of Iran\u2019s ports.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Israel sidelined as Trump pushes Iran agreementOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

By contrast, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio<\/a>, still held out hope that a deal could be reached on Monday, but there appeared to be a mounting list of unresolved problems in what was intended to be a roadmap to reopening the nuclear talks that US president Donald Trump<\/a> abandoned in February in favour of war.<\/p>\n

Rubio said it took time to receive an answer from the Iranian political system but he emphasised: \u201cEither we will have a good deal or we will deal with this issue in another way, and we prefer to have a good deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump, said in a post on Truth Social on Monday that the deal would either be \u201cgreat and meaningful, or there will be no deal at all\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"AA man holds a photo of Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran\u2019s new supreme leader, during a ceremony for the national soccer team in Tehran. Photograph: Arash Khamooshi\/Polaris for The New York Times <\/p>\n

Trump added that he had asked countries including Qatar<\/a>, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey to join the Abraham accords en masse to normalise relations with Israel.<\/p>\n

He said he spoke on Saturday to the leaders of those countries, as well as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which have already signed the accords, a set of agreements to normalise relations with Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am mandatorily requesting that all Countries immediately sign the Abraham Accords, and that, if Iran signs its Agreement with me, as President of the United States of America, it would be an Honor to have them also be part of this unparalleled World Coalition,\u201d Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.<\/p>\n

He cited \u201call the work done by the United States to try and pull this very complex puzzle together\u201d.<\/p>\n

Barbara Leaf, a former US assistant secretary for near east affairs, said: \u201cSuffice to say there are no takers among those who are not part of the Abraham accords to join that agreement. You are not going to get Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to do that. Absolutely not.\u201d She said the proposal had been greeted with \u201cstunned silence\u201d when Trump put it to the regional leaders by phone at the weekend.<\/p>\n

The Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, suggested the Abraham accords plan would not make the emerging deal any more palatable to Israel, describing the deal as disturbing and bad for the region. He said the Israeli government was at \u201can all-time low in its ability to influence decisions in Washington\u201d.<\/p>\n

In his press briefing, Baghaei also said no nuclear issues, such as what to do with the Iranian stockpile of highly enriched uranium, would be tackled in the memorandum except for a commitment to negotiate in the next 60 days. <\/p>\n

Trump, under mounting pressure from critics inside the Republican Party, wants the memorandum to contain a commitment by Iran to dispose of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, even if the precise method is not detailed.<\/p>\n

In previous rounds of talks with the US, Iran has said it is willing to down-blend the enriched uranium, but it will not permit the transfer of the stockpile to either the US or Russia. It has spoken of suspending domestic enrichment for as long as five years, but not the 20 years sought by the US.<\/p>\n

Iranian officials also claimed the political outcry about the deal inside the US was placing pressure on Trump to backtrack on plans to release as much as $12 billion in frozen Iranian assets held in Qatar. The governor of Iran\u2019s central bank, Abdolnaser Hemmati, travelled to Qatar on Monday.<\/p>\n

\"RescueRescue workers extinguish a fire following an Israeli air strike on the southern Lebanese town of Kfar Roummane on Monday. Photograph: Abbas Fakih\/AFP via Getty <\/p>\n

The release of the assets is a central Iranian demand, but has painful parallels for Trump, who lambasted Barack Obama for giving $1.7 billion to Iran in cash at the time of the 2015 nuclear deal.<\/p>\n

Baghaei, referring to the chaos in Washington, said: \u201cYou are faced with a wave of dismissals, contradictory statements, opposition from Congress and also opposition from parts of public opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump by contrast has dismissed his critics, saying he would not \u201clisten to losers who are critical of something they know nothing about\u201d.<\/p>\n

The deal contains nothing on Iran\u2019s ballistic missiles or support for its regional proxy groups; as such, it contrasts with Trump\u2019s promise that the war would end with Iran\u2019s complete surrender.<\/p>\n

Baghaei accused Israel of trying to scupper the deal, saying nothing else should be expected of the Israelis.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0JD Vance stakes his claim for the 2028 Republican nominationOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

On the strait of Hormuz, Baghaei said talks were held on Monday between Omani and Iranian officials. He claimed the reason Oman and Iran were trying to establish a reliable and effective mechanism to ensure safe passage in the strait was precisely because \u201cwe believe in the use of this international waterway for free trade and safe navigation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Rejecting claims the Iranian plan amounted to nationalisation of an open waterway, he said that if \u201cnavigation services are provided, plus necessary measures to protect the environment of the strait, these require the collection of fees. The term tolls should not be used. We do not charge tolls. I think we should be careful in the choice of words.\u201d<\/p>\n

European and Gulf states are likely to see this as a distinction without a differences, especially if commercial shipping is in effect required to seek Iran\u2019s navigational services. \u2013 The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran has poured cold water on suggestions that a deal with the US is imminent, pointing to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10748,969,42,123265,11829,3410,150432,14396,43,150177,40,38,41,39,20966,115],"class_list":["post-467321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-binyamin-netanyahu","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-hizbullah","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-israel-iran-conflict","tag-lebanon","tag-news","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trump-presidency","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}