US Vice President JD Vance said on Monday that the memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran was signed “digitally” the previous day, ahead of an in-person signing ceremony apparently set for Friday in Switzerland with high-ranking American and Iranian officials in attendance.

The text of the agreement between the two countries — said to halt the US blockade of Iran, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and begin 60 days of negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program — has not been released to the public. Senior US officials, including Vance and US President Donald Trump, offered contradictory hints as to its contents in various interviews and briefings throughout Monday.

“We already signed the deal digitally yesterday,” Vance told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

A senior US official subsequently confirmed that both Vance and Trump digitally signed the MOU on Sunday, with Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf signing on behalf of Tehran, putting a decisive end to the war launched by the US and Israel on February 28.

It was unclear when the full text of the deal would be released, with Trump initially saying it would be made public “pretty soon,” before later specifying that it would likely be “some time after Friday.”

Moments before Trump’s remarks from France, where he was attending the G7 summit, two of his top aides held a briefing for reporters in which one of them said the text would likely be released in the next 24 to 48 hours.

A pair of top officials in Trump’s administration also held a background phone briefing with reporters on Monday, shedding some light on how the deal will be implemented and what it contains.

The MOU established the “structure” for how negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program will unfold over the coming 60 days, but one of the senior US officials said that Washington will know “over the next two or three weeks” whether a follow-on agreement can actually be reached.

Trump threatened on Sunday that attacks on Iran could resume if the sides fail to reach a nuclear accord.

Conditions around Hormuz still murky

Another top official briefing reporters said that while the deal provides for the “immediate” reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, it will still “take a little time” to operationalize, as mines allegedly need to be removed and ship operators have their own judgments regarding the risk of using the waterway.

“We probably won’t return to normal in two weeks, but we will see a significant increase in strait traffic,” the senior US official said.

Trump, earlier on Monday, declared that the Strait of Hormuz had already been “partially” reopened, and would be “completely open” by the time of Friday’s signing ceremony.

Further complicating the narrative surrounding the deal,........

© The Times of Israel