Iran’s foreign minister said a Memorandum of Understanding with the United States could be signed remotely in the coming days, even as Tehran said the text was not final and hardliners attacked both the emerging deal and his handling of its public messaging.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told state television Friday that the memorandum could be signed once the final stages of negotiations are completed.
“Probably in the coming days, the memorandum of understanding between us and the United States will be signed,” Araghchi said.
He added that the signing would take place digitally and remotely after the final negotiating stages are passed, saying the process would be announced and could happen “in the coming days.”
But Araghchi also cautioned that the memorandum had not yet been signed and could still change. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said separately that the text was in the final stages of internal review and that no final decision had been made.
“Regarding the text of the understanding, we are in the final internal review stages. A meeting of the relevant bodies is currently underway,” Baghaei said.
Interim deal before nuclear talks
Araghchi sought to present the memorandum not as a final nuclear settlement, but as an interim political and security arrangement that would have to be implemented before any nuclear negotiations begin.
He said nuclear talks with the United States would take place only at a later stage and would not proceed unless the proposed interim deal was implemented first.
According to Araghchi, the interim arrangement would include reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ending conflicts on multiple fronts. He said management of the strait would not return to the pre-war era, adding that sovereignty over the waterway belonged to Iran and Oman and that Iran would secure safe passage for ships through it.
Araghchi also said the draft memorandum contains 14 articles and that nuclear issues had been moved to a second phase of negotiations lasting 60 days. He said the first phase included ending the war in Iran and on other fronts, as well as mutual commitments by Tehran and Washington not to interfere in each other’s internal affairs.
The comments came after Araghchi wrote on X that the “Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding” had never been closer to finalization, while urging media outlets not to speculate about its contents before the process is complete.
Hardliners target Araghchi
Araghchi’s public messaging quickly drew criticism from hardline circles, especially after President Donald Trump reposted his message and described it as “very positive.”
Fars News Agency, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, criticized Araghchi for what it called an “ambiguous” response to Trump’s rejection of Iranian media reports about the terms of a possible agreement.
The outlet said Araghchi’s English-language post failed to directly rebut Trump’s claim that leaked Iranian accounts of the agreement were false. Fars said his call for media restraint could be interpreted as an indirect confirmation that some of the published Iranian reports were inaccurate.
Fars also noted that Trump reposted Araghchi’s message shortly after it was published, portraying the Iranian foreign minister’s remarks as support for his own version of the negotiations.
Trump had earlier rejected Iranian media reports about the possible terms of the MoU, saying leaked details published in Iran had “NOTHING” to do with the written terms and bore “no relation to the truth.” He later told Axios that Iran had privately “apologized for putting out false information,” while saying he still believed a deal could be signed over the weekend or on Monday.
Hardline lawmaker Mahmoud Nabavian also criticized the latest version of the draft, saying it was more damaging than two earlier versions and involved greater Iranian concessions.
“After seeing the text of the agreement, I must say that compared with the two previous versions, it is more damaging and Iran’s retreats have also increased,” Nabavian said.
He posted a screenshot of Trump reposting Araghchi’s remarks and used it to attack Iranian officials involved in the talks.
“An agreement cooked up by the architects of the disgraceful JCPOA is certainly pure loss,” Nabavian wrote, using a phrase long used by hardliners to criticize the 2015 nuclear deal.
Several Friday prayer leaders also warned against compromise with Washington. Ahmad Alamolhoda, the Friday prayer leader in Mashhad, said no understanding would be acceptable without the approval of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
Mohammad Nabi Mousavifard, the Friday prayer leader in Ahvaz, said any retreat before what he called the “US and Israeli front” was “forbidden and unacceptable,” while Mohammad Mehdi Hosseini Hamedani in Karaj warned that countries assisting Iran’s enemies could become targets.
Conflicting reports over terms
The political pressure has been sharpened by sharply different accounts from Tehran and Washington over what the memorandum actually contains.
Iranian state media published details of what it called a 14-point draft understanding with the United States, including a ceasefire on all fronts, the lifting of the naval blockade and oil sanctions, the release of blocked funds, and future talks limited to nuclear and sanctions issues while excluding Iran’s missile program and support for regional allies.
Mehr News Agency said the draft included reconstruction projects worth at least $300 billion and the release of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets. It said final talks would not start until some oil sanctions were suspended, part of the frozen assets were released and the naval blockade was lifted.
US officials have described the emerging deal very differently.
A senior US official told Reuters the MoU would require the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program, the on-site destruction and subsequent removal of its highly enriched uranium from Iran, and a long-term inspection regime to enforce compliance.
The official said the deal would be “performance-based,” meaning Iran would receive no access to frozen assets until it had fulfilled its obligations.
Fox News, citing a White House official, reported that those obligations would include dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, removing nuclear material and ending support for proxy groups before sanctions relief is granted.
Vice President J.D. Vance also said Iranian authorities would receive no money simply for signing an agreement or attending a meeting.
“There is a lot of misinformation being circulated about a possible agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the Islamic Republic’s nuclear weapons program,” Vance said.
Close, but contested
The hardline backlash has contrasted with signals from some senior officials that Iran is preparing for possible implementation.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who heads Iran’s negotiating delegation, said commitments made under a looming deal with the United States must be upheld, warning there would be “no ifs, no buts, no excuses.”
Fars has denied reports that an agreement would be signed in Geneva on Sunday, saying Iran’s review and decision-making process had not been finalized and that claims about both the timing and location were “completely false.”
The denial effectively overtook earlier speculation in Iranian media over a public signing ceremony and who might represent Tehran if one took place.
For now, Iranian officials are presenting the memorandum as close to completion but still unsigned, while Washington is insisting that any benefits for Tehran will depend on concrete performance.
That gap has left both sides trying to shape the public narrative before any document is signed.
In Tehran, the dispute has already moved beyond the content of the memorandum itself to a broader question: whether the leadership can sell an interim understanding with Washington to a political base that still views direct compromise with the United States as a humiliation.
Historian and analyst Abdollah Shahbazi said any document signed at this stage would likely be a memorandum of understanding rather than a legally binding agreement, warning that any such text could at best provide a temporary pause before tensions return.
Soleimani Ardestani, a religious scholar, former Mofid University professor and member of a reformist association of Qom seminary teachers and researchers, is being held in Qom’s prison.
According to Mojtaba Lotfi, an official from the office of the late dissident cleric Hossein Ali Montazeri, the court convicted him on all eight charges brought against him.
Lotfi said Soleimani Ardestani does not plan to appeal unless the court agrees to hold a public hearing.
In a letter from prison, Soleimani Ardestani said the charges against him included disturbing public opinion, insulting sacred values, insulting the leadership in relation to Ali Khamenei and his son Mojtaba, taking part in a gathering over the house arrest of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and assembly and collusion against domestic security.
Mousavi, a former prime minister, has been under house arrest since 2011 after rejecting the official result of Iran’s disputed 2009 presidential election and becoming one of the symbols of the Green Movement protests.
Soleimani Ardestani also listed accusations such as propaganda against the system, spreading falsehoods online, insulting senior religious authorities, damaging the dignity of the clergy and “mind control and psychological suggestion” – a striking charge even by the standards of Iran’s broad political indictments.
He has called the indictment weak and baseless, criticized his arrest and solitary confinement, and said he wrote his defense not to seek acquittal but to leave a record for history.
The case began with remarks in a debate with pro-government cleric Hamed Kashani. Soleimani Ardestani questioned long-promoted Shiite accounts about the death of Fatemeh Zahra, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammed and wife of Ali, the first Shiite Imam.
In Iran, the story of Fatemeh’s martyrdom is not only a religious narrative but part of a vast state-backed culture of mourning, ritual and political identity.
Soleimani Ardestani argued that if Ali had merely watched his wife being attacked and had not intervened, then the traditional account would raise questions about his justice. He later said he had not insulted Fatemeh and was challenging what he called the “stories told by religious singers or eulogists (maddahs).”
He also questioned mourning ceremonies for Muhammad Taqi, the ninth Shiite Imam, saying his death was linked to jealousy by his wife after he remarried and that mourning the event 1,300 years later was meaningless.
The backlash was immediate. Pro-government eulogists, who play an influential role in mobilizing religious crowds, attacked him with vulgar and sexist language. Reports also emerged of a group attack on his home.
Hardline figures called for prosecution and defrocking, while some religious voices went further, suggesting that denial of Fatemeh’s martyrdom could amount to leaving Shiite doctrine.
The controversy also split parts of the political middle ground. Reformist figures criticized Soleimani Ardestani’s tone and timing, while others warned that violent threats, home attacks and denunciations violated freedom of belief.
The sentence is significant because it shows how quickly the Islamic Republic can convert a dispute over religious history into a security case.
Soleimani Ardestani was not an outside critic of clerical rule. He was a cleric from inside the seminary world, which makes his challenge more sensitive.
By sentencing him to prison and stripping him of clerical status, the system is not only punishing one man. It is policing the boundaries of who is allowed to interpret religion, how far internal debate can go, and what happens when religious scholarship collides with the political theology of the state.
