Published on 6/15/2026
Details of the process of ratifying the memorandum of understanding between Iran and the United States show that reaching the final declaration was not easy, as the agreement nearly exploded yesterday, Sunday, after the Israeli attack on the southern suburb of Beirut.
In this context, the director of Al Jazeera’s office in Tehran, Nour al-Din al-Daghir, said that the informal signing of the memorandum of understanding took place last Wednesday in the presence of the Qatari mediator, but protocol procedures delayed the official announcement, which took place on Sunday evening through the Pakistani mediator.
Al-Daghir pointed out that the attack on Beirut almost blew up the agreement, as the airspace in Tehran was closed and there was a tendency to cancel everything, with Iran preparing for a military response, but the mediators – especially the Qataris – conveyed an American message of the need to beware of Israeli moves aimed at blowing up the advanced negotiations.
Accordingly, the Iranian side interacted with the role of mediators, and the two parties overcame the crisis of the attack on Beirut to announce the agreement, but disagreements returned on two basic points: the Strait of Hormuz and the frozen funds, which required the Qatari mediator to arrive in Tehran again.
Regarding the Strait of Hormuz, the director of the Al Jazeera office explained that the dispute arose because the text of the memorandum seemed to some Iranian political factions to conflict with the statements of Iranian leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who had confirmed that the strait would not return to its previous state, so there was a need to reformulate the clause to be clearer.
The item on the Strait was returned to the Iranian National Security Council in a rare step after initial approval, then it went up to the six-party committee (the Nuclear Agreement Committee) for approval and finally it was submitted to the Supreme Leader, with whom the text remained until late Sunday evening.
The second dispute between the two sides concerns the frozen Iranian funds amounting to $24 billion, as Iran needed real guarantees after previous experiences with Washington during which it failed to access these funds. At this point, the Qatari mediator was able to convince the Iranians and convey to them the reality of the guarantees.
Iran papers
Iranian affairs specialist Hassan Ahmadian said that the war began to end Iran and its regime, but Iran took control of the Strait of Hormuz and made it a “dialogue table” for bartering with Washington, so it moved from negotiating the nuclear file only to having two cards: Hormuz and the nuclear one.
Ahmadian explained – during his speech to Al Jazeera – that Iran has separated the two files diplomatically, putting Hormuz first, so that the strait will be fully opened to commercial navigation with a new protocol in which Iran and Oman participate in monitoring it, in exchange for an American retreat from any step or measures related to the strait.
The nuclear file was also postponed to a second stage, and all that is in the memorandum is an Iranian pledge not to produce a nuclear weapon and to enter into negotiations for a period of 60 days that can be extended, which gives Tehran – according to Ahmadian – a new pressure tool that facilitates the marketing of the agreement internally among the hardliners against it.
Ahmadian revealed that the terms of the second phase include establishing a development and reconstruction fund for Iran worth $300 billion in compensation, expecting the strait to be fully reopened commercially within a week under the new arrangements.
He concluded that the agreement is based on stages and mutual steps, and if the United States retreats from any step or is unable to restrain Israel, then Iran will be absolved of its obligations, and in the second stage of the agreement there is a fund worth 300 billion dollars for reconstruction, but Ahmadian expects that Washington will veto the rest of the agreement, so that everyone will return to square one.
On Sunday evening, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif announced that a peace agreement had been reached between the United States and Iran that would end military operations on various fronts, including the Lebanese arena, revealing that the signing ceremony of the agreement would be held in Switzerland on June 19.
