US and Iran Declare Peace Accord; Geneva Signing Set for June 19

President Donald Trump announced Sunday evening that the United States and Iran have reached a peace agreement ending more than three months of fighting, with a formal signing ceremony set for Geneva on Thursday, June 19. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif confirmed the agreement in a near-simultaneous post on X, and Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi told Iranian state television that military operations “on all fronts, including Lebanon” would end immediately.

Trump posted on Truth Social that the deal “is now complete” and said he had “fully authorize[d] the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz” alongside the immediate removal of the US naval blockade, according to Middle East Eye’s running coverage. The Wall Street Journal reported separately that Trump told the paper the agreement could be signed electronically by either the president or Vice President JD Vance, and AFP reported that Vance is expected to attend the Geneva signing in person.

The announcement closes a week of choreography the desk has been tracking through the WSJ-described Vance memorandum architecture and the draft text Tehran was reviewing.

Frozen assets and the 60-day window

Iranian state-affiliated Mehr News Agency reported Sunday that the memorandum of understanding provides for $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets to be released over a 60-day period beginning when the memorandum takes effect, with $12 billion described as the first tranche. The US has not confirmed the figure. The 60-day window described by Mehr corresponds to the follow-on calendar Reuters described in its account of the draft text and which the desk has previously analysed in its sixty-day follow-on calendar piece.

Gharibabadi said negotiations on a final agreement would take place over a 60-day period after the political signing, and added that Tehran would take “its own measures” if it observed “breaches from the other side.”

Strait of Hormuz

Trump’s Truth Social posts give conflicting timelines for when the Strait of Hormuz will reopen. One post said the strait would reopen “very shortly”; a later post said it would reopen after the planned signing on June 19, per Middle East Eye’s compilation. Iran’s position, as expressed through Gharibabadi, is that the strait will begin reopening from Sunday evening Tehran time.

Task & Purpose reported that the US Navy blockade is being lifted in connection with the announcement. The desk’s prior analysis of the US Navy Gulf posture as the operational tell of the deal sets out the metric — escort cadence reduction — against which the lifting will be measurable.

European reaction and the nuclear file

The United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy issued a joint statement Sunday saying they were prepared to lift sanctions on Iran if Tehran takes steps on its nuclear programme after the US-Iran deal. “Iran must never acquire a nuclear weapon,” the E4 statement said, adding that the four were ready to work with Washington, Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Trump’s own framing of the nuclear file in his Sunday posts cast the agreement as a “WALL against Iran ever having a Nuclear weapon” and attacked the 2015 JCPOA. Iran has not made a public statement matching the E4’s framing of nuclear-programme steps as a precondition for European sanctions relief.

Lebanon and a halted Iranian strike

Iran cancelled planned missile strikes on Israel after Trump’s intervention, the New York Times reported, citing Iranian officials in coverage carried by Middle East Eye. The newspaper said Iranian leadership had debated whether to retaliate for Israel’s Sunday strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, with some arguing that a missile attack would serve Israeli interests by derailing the Washington track.

Trump himself called the Israeli strikes on Beirut unjustified and said they put the Iran deal at risk. Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the Beirut strike as a “terrorist crime.” The Israeli cabinet has not issued a public statement on the Sunday announcement.

G7 and the Monday open

French President Emmanuel Macron said G7 leaders meeting in Evian, France, from Monday will discuss the agreement, the Strait of Hormuz reopening, and a wider arrangement on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. The summit is the first major multilateral forum at which the deal will be discussed; its communiqué language will be the first public document treating the agreement as a settled fact.

Cash markets open in Asia in the hours after the announcement. Brent crude, tanker war-risk premiums, and Gulf-region equity indices will reprice off whatever language and timeline survive into Monday morning Tokyo and London hours.

What is not yet on paper

A formal signed text has not been published. Iran’s supreme leader has not issued a written endorsement. The Iranian foreign minister has not been publicly named as a counterpart signatory. Treasury has not published a sanctions guidance document, OFAC general licence, or designation amendment operationalising the asset release. CENTCOM has not announced a published escort-cadence reduction. The IAEA has not been publicly invited into a follow-on conversation.

The signing scheduled for June 19 is the date by which those documented outputs become the test of whether Sunday’s political announcement has converted into a working instrument.