Iran says it agreed to return Hormuz traffic to normal over set period

A senior US official said Iran and the United States can still walk away from the memorandum of understanding due to be signed on Friday and that upcoming talks would likely focus on the sequencing of steps outlined in the preliminary accord.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official read out the 14-point memorandum that is due to be formally signed in Switzerland.

“I think the meeting in Switzerland will be quite critical in order to really see how we get to the next phase,” the official told reporters on Wednesday.

The official said the Switzerland meeting would be critical to determining whether the memorandum of understanding can evolve into a comprehensive agreement.

The document, as read out by the official, was similar to the 14-point memorandum that several media outlets had reported on earlier in the day.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said on Wednesday it received a report of an incident 105 nautical miles northeast of Yemen's Aden, adding that the crew were safe.

“A vessel has been approached to within 4 meters and fired upon by 2 skiffs with an unknown number of armed persons on board,” UKMTO said.

“The vessel has deployed security team and returned fire. The suspect vessels have now disengaged,” it added.

US President Donald Trump said Iran should be allowed to retain some missiles and said the United States would work with Persian Gulf nations on non-nuclear issues, including ballistic missiles and Tehran's "terrorist proxies."

“We’ll be working on a parallel effort with the (Persian) Gulf nations to address non-nuclear issues, such as the conventional ballistic missiles,” Trump said.

“They have to have some, because other people have some. You gotta have some,” he added.

“There are people around me who say they shouldn’t even have one missile. I asked: what exactly do you suggest? That Saudi Arabia can have missiles and Iran cannot? It just doesn’t work that way,” Trump said.

“We’ll talk also about the terrorist proxies that they have... We don’t want that to happen,” Trump added.

US President Donald Trump said some understandings with Iran were not included in the written memorandum of understanding and warned that the United States could resume bombing if Tehran failed to honor them.

“If they don’t honor the agreement, some things aren’t even mentioned in the agreement. It’s a memorandum of understanding, but we have an understanding of certain things without writing it, and if they don’t honor that, we’ll probably go back to bombing them,” Trump said in remarks at the close of the G7 summit in France.

“It’s amazing what bombs can do,” he added.

US President Donald Trump said the US-Iran deal would likely be signed shortly, possibly on Friday, in his remarks at the close of the G7 summit in France.

"So, the deal we reached with Iran on Sunday will be signed shortly, tomorrow, maybe the next day," Trump told reporters.

Trump said he had sent a copy of the memorandum of understanding to Israel.

“We will most likely sign a deal,” Trump said.