Iran Claims Draft Hormuz MOU With US; White House Calls It Fabrication
Tehran says it received a draft framework to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the US naval blockade. The White House calls the report a complete fabrication.
Iranian state television reported Wednesday that Tehran had received a “draft of the initial unofficial framework” for a memorandum of understanding with the United States that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping and end the US naval blockade now entering its third week. Within hours, the White House called the report a “complete fabrication,” leaving the two governments publicly contradicting each other on whether any negotiated text exists at all.
The Iranian broadcast, carried by state TV early Wednesday, described the document as an unofficial framework rather than a signed agreement, and said it covered the reopening of the strait and the withdrawal of the US naval cordon that has redirected global tanker traffic since the strikes earlier this month. The report did not name the channel through which the draft was transmitted, and Iranian officials did not release the text.
A White House spokesperson, responding to questions later in the day, said the Iranian account was a “complete fabrication” and that no such draft existed. The statement did not address whether back-channel contacts of any kind were under way, and the administration declined to elaborate further.
The contradiction
The dueling statements continue a pattern that has defined the public US-Iran track for the last ten days. Last week, President Trump described an Iran deal as “largely negotiated”, a characterization Tehran rejected within hours. Days later, Iranian negotiators were reported to be objecting to revised draft terms covering the unfreezing of overseas assets. By Monday, Iranian officials were publicly briefing that a deal was not imminent, framing the slowdown as leverage gained from what Tehran has characterized as Israel’s military failure to dislodge the regime.
Wednesday’s exchange tightens that pattern: Iran publicizes a document, Washington denies the document exists. Neither side has released text, named a mediator, or set a venue.
Bagheri sets red lines
The denial landed the same day Iran’s deputy Supreme National Security Council secretary, Ali Bagheri Kani, laid out two positions that narrow whatever negotiating space exists.
In a public statement, Bagheri said Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is “not on agenda” for negotiations with the United States. The position aligns with the line Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei drew last week, when he said the stockpile would stay in Iran regardless of any diplomatic settlement. The stockpile, accumulated during the period after the 2018 US withdrawal from the JCPOA, has been a central US and Israeli concern and was the stated justification for several of the strikes earlier this month.
Bagheri also said future transit through the Strait of Hormuz will be “completely different” from pre-war conditions, signaling that any reopening will come on Iranian terms rather than a return to the prior status quo. The statement followed an IRGC announcement earlier in the week barring vessels flagged to “hostile countries” from the strait.
Taken together, the two statements set out Iran’s opening position for any talks: the uranium is not negotiable, and the waterway will operate under Iranian rules. Neither posture is compatible with a framework that the United States, on current public statements, would sign.
Throughput, by the numbers
Both governments released competing throughput figures Wednesday that frame how each side wants the blockade understood.
The IRGC navy said 23 vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz under Iranian control in the previous 24 hours, a figure intended to show that the waterway remains functional under Tehran’s management. The US Navy, in the same news cycle, said it has “redirected” 109 ships since the blockade began, a figure that frames the cordon as effective and ongoing.
The numbers are not directly comparable. The IRGC figure is a daily throughput count of vessels Iran permitted; the US figure is a cumulative count of ships diverted away from the strait under American direction since the start of operations. Both can be true at once, and both governments have an interest in the other’s number not being the headline.
Outlook
Crude markets, which had drifted lower on the earlier “largely negotiated” framing, gave back part of those gains on the White House denial. Tanker rates on Gulf routes remain elevated and insurance war-risk premiums on Hormuz transits are still well above pre-blockade levels.
The diplomatic picture for the rest of the week is narrow. With Iran publicly ruling out concessions on uranium and signaling that any Hormuz reopening will come on its terms, and the White House denying that a draft framework exists at all, the gap between the two public positions is wider Wednesday evening than it was Wednesday morning. Whether a back-channel exists behind those statements is the question neither government is willing to answer on the record.
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