A US official said Friday that the emerging memorandum of understanding with Iran “leads to” Washington getting Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

“We provide in the agreement that this material would be destroyed on site, and then taken out of the country,” he said.

The official, who held a phone briefing with reporters on condition of anonymity, also said the draft agreement was “broad” and would include Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Iran’s proxy group Hezbollah. He added that Iran’s loosening grip on the Strait of Hormuz has cost it leverage in the talks, and that he was “80 to 85 percent” sure the deal would happen.

Meanwhile, key mediator and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif wrote on X that “a final, agreed-upon text of the peace deal has been reached.” Further signaling a possible deal, four sources told Reuters that the United Arab Emirates had agreed to unlock billions of dollars for Iran — a claim Abu Dhabi denied. The Swiss foreign ministry told AFP it had offered to host the signing.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also said the deal could be signed “remotely” in the coming days, and claimed it guarantees Iranian-Omani custody of the Strait of Hormuz. He also said Iran believes its highly enriched uranium could be diluted only inside the country.

US President Donald Trump had on Thursday called off planned overnight strikes on Iran, claiming a draft agreement was ready to be signed over the weekend, possibly in Europe.

On Friday, he fumed at Iran over state media reports claiming Tehran would immediately receive billions of dollars in sanctions relief upon signing the MOU. In reality, the deal only offers Iran sanctions relief if it implements commitments regarding its nuclear program.

Trump told Channel 12 that he had demanded the Iranians apologize for publishing false information. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi subsequently issued a tweet in which he said that a deal has never been closer, while cautioning the media against speculative reporting on the contents of the MOU. Trump approved of Araghchi’s post, according to Channel 12, and reposted it on social media.

While Trump has said he finalized the details with Israel and other allies, his announcement Thursday reportedly caught Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu off guard. A senior US official quoted by Channel 12 on Friday said the premier was told by Trump in a phone call shortly after the announcement: “This is the deal. It’s an excellent deal. It’s time to end this war.”

The official who briefed reporters anonymously over the phone on Friday said Netanyahu “didn’t say much during the call. Apparently, he understands Apparently, he understand that there’s going to be a deal and that he doesn’t have the ability to stop it.”

However, the senior official said Trump and his top aides have ben in continuous contact with their Israeli counterparts. Washington feels the Israelis will show support “when they see the full terms of the deal, and when they appreciate that, fundamentally, there has to be delivery from the Iranians before we deliver any of the benefits,” he said.

“They certainly have expressed some skepticism of the misreported details that we’ve seen out there,” he added.

“We do expect us to be signing this agreement over the next few days. I can’t give you an exact date,” said the official.

“If I were to give you a confidence that we were going to be signing this agreement, I maybe would have said 75% this morning, it’s probably more like 80-85% now, but it’s not 100 percent,” he said.........

© The Times of Israel