US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian have signed an initial agreement to extend the ceasefire for another 60 days and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. DW has the latest.
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International Energy Agency (IEA) head Fatih Birol has called for the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened without conditions following the signing of the interim deal between the US and Iran.
The strait must be reopened “without conditions” so that all parties “believe it is safe,” Birol said on Thursday at an event in Istanbul, Turkey.
“We will now see the details of the agreement and the negotiation process, and what happens next.”
However, the waterway — a global chokepoint for oil, gas and fertilizer transport — could potentially be closed again, he said.
“The vase is broken,” he said. “Now all actors know that the Strait of Hormuz was closed once and it can be shut down again.”
Birol said several countries were reviewing their energy policies in view of this fact.
According to the IEA, the closure of the strait by Iran amid the war triggered by February 28 attacks on it by the US and Israel blocked more than 14 million barrels per day (bpd) of Middle East oil output.
US President Donald Trump has defended the interim deal with Iran on Thursday after he signed it overnight.
“These fools, who think I haven’t been tough enough on Iran, when the stock market just hit A RECORD HIGH, and oil prices are ‘tumbling’ down, are either jealous, bad people, or stupid,” the president said on his Truth Social platform.
It comes after some conservative commentators and even members of Trump’s own Republican ranks spoke out against the deal, particularly in comparison to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal secured by former president Barrack Obama.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, said: “I think the president, unfortunately, is receiving bad advice.”
Another Republican senator, Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, described it as the “worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”
“Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works,” Cassidy said.
Iran said on Thursday that negotiations with the US following the signing of the framework deal would not touch on Tehran’s missile program.
“Our missiles do not like at all to be talked about by anyone,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told Iranian state television.
“Iranian missiles are only for firing, not for negotiations. Iran’s defense capability will not be discussed in any way, in any process or with any party,” he added.
Before the war, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had warned that Iran would need to negotiate over its ballistic missiles, but the memorandum of understanding signed by US President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Pezeshkian, makes no mention of this.
On Wednesday, Trump even said would be “unfair” for Iran not to have missiles.
“I’m saying that if other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some,” Trump said, adding that having missiles was not equivalent to having nuclear weapons.
Three Saudi-flagged supertankers carrying 6 million barrels of crude have passed through the Strait of Hormuz, just hours after the US and Iran signed a preliminary framework peace deal, according to ship tracking data.
According to an analysis by Reuters news agency, the vessels, which departed from Saudi ports, were the largest to move through the strait in weeks.
With the strait, a key transport route for Gulf oil, virtually closed since the Iran war started on February 28, Saudi Arabia has been mainly using its Red Sea port terminal of Yanbu to ship out oil.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, has welcomed the interim peace deal signed by Washington and Tehran, saying its technical implementation could now begin.
“It is good that the memorandum is there. Now the technical work starts,” Grossi told reporters in Geneva.
“Now it is for us to sit down with our American and Iranian colleagues and start formulating concrete steps that will have to be taken,” he said.
Under the deal, Iran is to downblend its stock of highly enriched uranium, which is just below the enrichment level required to make nuclear weapons, under the supervision of the IAEA.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that Iran must not gain a nuclear weapon and that he had conducted the war against the Islamic Republic to this end.
First negotiations between the US and Iran are still planned to go ahead in Switzerland on Friday after Tehran and Washington digitally signed a ceasefire agreement, the Swiss government said.
“As things stand, the plan is still for the US and Iran, along with mediators Pakistan and Qatar and other involved countries, to meet tomorrow at Bürgenstock [a mountainside resort town near Lucerne] for initial negotiations about implementing the agreement,” the Swiss Foreign Ministry said.
“No further information is currently available regarding the schedule and details of this meeting,” the ministry said.
The memorandum of understanding agreed between the US and Iran was signed separately on Wednesday by US President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian.
Pakistan, which has been mediating in the US-Iran conflict, initially said a formal signing ceremony would take place in Switzerland, but a tweet to this effect by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was later deleted.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius says two German ships are on their way to being stationed in the Red Sea in preparation for a possible missionto secure the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaking to reporters ahead of a NATO meeting in Brussels, Pistorius said, “While we are talking here, our minesweeper Fulda and the supply shp Mosel are sailing through the Suez Canal toward the Red Sea.”
“We want, if it is called for and becomes reality, to be able to take action quickly and above all to quickly be in the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.
He said the ships were currently headed for Djibouti, meaning that no mandate from the German parliament, or Bundestag, was necessary, as the action was covered by the EU naval mission Operation Aspides.
A mandate would then be sought if conditions were clear for a naval mission in the Strait of Hormuz, Pistorius said.
“We have always made it clear that for the Strait of Hormuz we need a clear framework within international law, which can take different forms, and we need permissive environment, that is, particularly the approval of Iran and Oman for such mine-clearance activities,” he said.
“Much depends now on how the negotiations between the US and Iran run in the next 60 days,” he added.
Tehran is entering the current round of talks from a strong position, unlike during the 2015 Vienna nuclear negotiations, according to chief negotiator and parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
He told state broadcaster IRIB that Tehran’s approach to the US was now based on a “diplomacy of strength,” citing what he described as recent military successes acknowledged by both allies and opponents.
Ghalibaf said the current talks had no room fo ”empty rhetoric,” concessions or compromise, and that the process was ”a form of resistance.”
The 2015 talks in Vienna between Iran, the permanent UN Security Council members, Germany and the EU led to an agreement that aimed to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.
At the time, the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was slammed by Iranian hard-liners as a compromise, while the then-supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, praised his country’s “heroic flexibility.”
The US withdrew from the agreement in 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term, meaning that damaging sanctions lifted under the deal were reinstated.
French President Emmanuel Macron also posted a video (see below) of President Trump signing the memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran.
“This agreement paves the way for lasting peace and allows the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz,” Macron said.
Macron added, “It is an important step in the right direction for our compatriots that will soon enable a decrease in energy prices.”
The interim deal between the US and Iran is set to trigger a period of 60 days over which the most divisive issue between the two countries would be addressed —Tehran’s nuclear program.
Preventing Iran from attaining a nuclear bomb was a key reason that President Donald Trump said he launched the war with Israel in February, but the tentative agreement leaves little runway to negotiate the long-running sticking point.
The previous nuclear pact between Iran and world powers, from which Trump pulled the US in his first term, took many months to negotiate.
Under terms of the initial deal, Iran would immediately take steps to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to global oil shipments and would be allowed to sell its oil without restrictions, a US official said.
Iran is also set to receive at least $300 billion for reconstruction and the US would work to end all American and UN sanctions imposed on Tehran. That is, if a final agreement addressing Iran’s nuclear program is reached after the 60-day period for talks.
The initial agreement said the sides agreed to resolve “the disposition” of Iran’s highly enriched uranium during that period.
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Still, there is deep skepticism among both Republican and Democratic lawmakers that the deal is realistic, workable or would have any effect on subsequent nuclear talks.
Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and former US ambassador to the UN, wrote that Iranians will use any funds received ”to further their nuclear ambitions and on terrorist proxies against us.”
“It’s a huge mistake to pay to rebuild the threat we just destroyed,” she added.
Now that the US and Iran have signed an interim pact to end fighting for a period of 60 days, the real task of implementation begins.
The pact extends the April ceasefire between the US and Iran, though both sides continued with some strikes in the months that followed.
Read the 14-point pact released by US officials.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino posted a video that showed Trump signing the memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran.
Trump signed the document shortly before the dinner hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has also digitally signed the agreement, the IRNA news agency reported, citing Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei.
A formal signing agreement is scheduled for Friday, with Pakistan having confirmed the ceremony but Iranian officials having said there wasn’t a need for the expected ceremony anymore.
Iran on Thursday confirmed it signed an interim agreement to extend the ceasefire by another 60 days and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
“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,” state news agency IRNA quoted Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei as saying.
The spokesman added that the expected signing of the agreement would no longer then happen in Switzerland.
Pakistan, which has been playing the role of mediator, said a ceremonial signing ceremony would take place on Friday.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on X that both the US and Iran had signed the agreement and endorsed him as a mediator.
He said the deal “shall enter into force with immediate effect and as a first step, Islamic Republic of Iran will instantly reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the United States of America will immediately lift the naval blockade.”
He said there will still be a formal signing ceremony on Friday.
Sharif’s post came after Trump said he signed the agreement at the Palace of Versailles near Paris.
“It’s signed,” Trump said as he left the Palace of Versailles after attending a dinner hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron.
“I signed it in Versailles,” Trump said. “Just signed it.”
Trump spent the evening there after having attended the G7 summit that ended on Wednesday afternoon.
The palace is about 15 miles southwest of Paris.
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