US President Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed Iran should be allowed to keep some of its ballistic missiles, as he defended the signed memorandum of understanding between his administration and Tehran shortly before the deal entered into force.

“If other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some,” Trump said in France, where he held a press conference on the sidelines of a G7 summit. “If Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and they all have some, I would say that in relative proportion, I think it’s okay” for Iran to have ballistic missiles as well.

“Missiles aren’t the problem… They hurt a little location, but they don’t blow up the planet (like nuclear weapons do),” Trump said.

Destruction of Iran’s missile program had been an aim on the same footing as others for Israel when it launched a war against the Islamic Republic alongside the US on February 28. While the US for weeks waffled on its own aims for the war, it has insisted throughout that Iran was attempting to use its missile program as a shield to make it impossible for other countries to prevent it from building a nuclear weapon.

Trump’s de-prioritization of the missile issue appeared to mark a shift for the US, though, though he did clarify that the program would be discussed in follow-on talks that the sides agreed to hold for the next 60 days.

Hours after Trump’s press conference, the Iranian foreign ministry announced that the text of the MOU had been “officially” signed by the presidents from both countries, which Trump confirmed following a dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles.

A US official clarified to Reuters that Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed it after the memo was signed digitally on Sunday by Vice President JD Vance and Iran’s chief negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and witnessed by Trump.

“The text of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding was finalized with the signatures of the presidents — now it is time to test the implementation of the agreement,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said, quoted by the state news agency IRNA.

Despite the signings, the US has refrained from officially releasing the text of the deal, leading to mounting criticism that it was trying to hide the terms.

As different versions of the deal began leaking, the White House decided to hold a phone briefing for reporters with two of the top officials in the Trump administration during which they read out the full MOU.

Enriched uranium not that important either

The readout confirmed that the MOU also does not require Iran to hand over its stockpiles of highly-enriched uranium, which can be used to produce 11 nuclear bombs.

Instead, it states that the US and Iran have agreed to address the issue through a mechanism that will be negotiated over the next two months, “with the minimum methodology to be down-blending on site under the supervision of the IAEA.”

Pushed on the issue during his press conference, Trump downplayed the importance of obtaining Iran’s uranium stockpiles, claiming that Tehran cannot access them anyway.

He again asserted that the “nuclear dust” is buried deep under rubble after bombing Iran’s three main nuclear sites last year. He said only the US and China have the equipment to reach it.

“It’s actually not valuable, but we’d like to get it psychologically,” Trump said. “Nobody’s touching it. We also have Space Force cameras” monitoring the sites.

It has not been publicly confirmed that the stockpiles are actually located in any of those three sites. Iran is also said to........

© The Times of Israel