{"id":211663,"date":"2026-05-25T12:04:50","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T12:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/deal-with-us-not-imminent-iran-says-bbc\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T12:04:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T12:04:50","slug":"deal-with-us-not-imminent-iran-says-bbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/deal-with-us-not-imminent-iran-says-bbc\/","title":{"rendered":"Deal with US not imminent, Iran says &#8211; BBC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Iran says some progress has been reached in talks with the US, but a deal &quot;is not imminent&quot;. <br \/>Foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqai&#x27;s remarks came after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said an agreement could possibly be reached on Monday. <br \/>&quot;It is correct to say that we have reached a conclusion on a large portion of the issues under discussion,&quot; Baqai said in Tehran on Monday. &quot;But to say that this means the signing of an agreement is imminent &#8211; no-one can make such a claim.&quot;<br \/>The memorandum of understanding reportedly involves a 60-day ceasefire extension, reopening the Strait of Hormuz and a plan for further negotiations over Iran&#x27;s nuclear programme.<br \/>At the weekend, President Donald Trump suggested the sides were closing a deal, even though he later said he had instructed negotiators &quot;not to rush into&quot; one. <br \/>On Monday, Rubio told reporters in the Indian capital, Delhi: &quot;We thought we might have some news last night. Maybe today.&quot; <br \/>Cautioning &quot;I wouldn&#x27;t read too much into it&quot;, Rubio said: &quot;It takes a little while to hear back from Iran.&quot;<br \/>CBS News, the BBC&#x27;s US partner, has reported that US intelligence believes Iran&#x27;s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei &#8211; who was injured in an Israeli strike on the first day of the war which killed his father and predecessor &#8211; is holed up in an undisclosed location, making communication with his envoys difficult and therefore delaying pace of talks with the US.<br \/>According to US media, the mooted deal is not a final settlement &#8211; instead it leaves some of the thorniest issues to be negotiated later, including the scope and timing of Iranian sanctions relief, the release of frozen Iranian funds, and Washington&#x27;s demands for Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions.<br \/>&quot;So we have, what I think is a pretty solid thing on the table in terms of their ability to open up the Straits,&quot; he said referring to the Strait of Hormuz &#8211; the crucial waterway where 20% of the world&#x27;s oil and liquefied natural gas passes and which Iran has been blocking.<br \/>Oil prices fell sharply and Asian stock markets rose on Monday on hopes of an agreement.<br \/>The reported deal has split Trump&#x27;s Republicans, with some publicly arguing it is too lenient on Iran. <br \/>Senator Ted Cruz said it would be &quot;a disastrous mistake&quot;, while Roger Wicker, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said a 60-day ceasefire would mean &quot;everything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury would be for naught!&quot;<br \/>Senator Lindsey Graham, who is a close Trump ally, also criticised any deal that would leave Iran perceived as being a dominant force in the region.<br \/>&quot;It makes one wonder why the war started to begin with,&quot; he said.<br \/>Trump responded by dismissing his critics as &quot;losers&quot; and saying &quot;the deal with Iran will either be a great and meaningful one, or there will be no deal&quot;.<br \/>Even in a best case scenario, the effects of a deal are unlikely to be seen right away.<br \/>It could be months before the shipping industry will be able to go back to supply chains that are &quot;physically in the same shape as they were before the crisis&quot;, Lars Jensen, chief executive of Vespucci Maritime and former director of shipping company Maersk, told BBC Radio 4&#x27;s Today programme.<br \/>Should a deal between Iran and the US be announced in the coming days, the industry would still remain &quot;cautious and hesitant&quot; to make any &quot;major operational changes&quot;, Jensen explained.<br \/>The US and Israel launched wide-ranging strikes on Iran on 28 February, sparking conflict across the Middle East. Iran responded by attacking Israel and US-allied states in the Gulf, and effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz. The move sent oil prices soaring globally.<br \/>Shortly after a ceasefire was agreed in early April, the US established a blockade of Iranian ports, which Trump says will remain &quot;in full force and effect until an agreement is reached, certified, and signed&quot;. <br \/>In Sunday&#x27;s post on Truth Social, Trump reiterated that Iran &quot;must understand&quot; it cannot develop a nuclear weapon. Tehran has repeatedly said its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purposes.<br \/>Some reports in US media suggest the deal could see Iran agree to eventually hand over its highly enriched uranium. <br \/>At the start of the war, Iran is thought to have had about 440kg (970 lbs) of uranium that was enriched up to 60% purity &#8211; a short process away from being enriched further to the weapons-grade 90%, which theoretically<b id=\"\" class=\"sc-4029fe79-0 kKtEQU\"> <\/b>could allow it to create a nuclear bomb. <br \/>Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told state TV Iran was ready &quot;to assure the world that we are not after a nuclear weapon.&quot;<br \/>Trump said on Saturday that an agreement would include the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, without giving further details.<br \/>MBS&#x27;s Vison 2030 project seemed the stuff of science fiction. Now reality has bitten<br \/>Activists from the flotilla have made numerous allegations of abuse and mistreatment, which the Israeli government denies. <br \/>Iran says Fifa has approved the country&#x27;s World Cup training base being switched from the United States to Mexico.<br \/>Tehran also signals progress on talks but says the key issue of nuclear weapons is not part of an initial framework it is working on.<br \/>Copyright 2026 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\u00a0<a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/editorialguidelines\/guidance\/links-and-feeds\" class=\"sc-2554282c-0 cDYatN\"><b id=\"read-about-our-approach-to-external-linking.\" class=\"sc-4029fe79-0 kORWLB\">Read about our approach to external linking.<\/b><\/a><br \/>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/rss\/articles\/CBMiWkFVX3lxTFBkWjgzM3RoM2NUVE5tdF9xeVFnMVNnWl9lQXFVZThFcUlQZGdUQ2RYNUhVWXhKT3kyTnZ6Ui13TzlQbmRwV2txa3pxWVhYRlV2eFU2LXZMdGZXdw?oc=5\">source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Iran says some progress has been reached in talks with the US, but a deal &quot;is not imminent&quot;. Foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqai&#x27;s remarks came after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said an agreement could possibly be reached on Monday. &quot;It is correct to say that we have reached a conclusion on a large [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":211664,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-211663","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}