American intelligence information has raised doubts about Iran’s willingness to make the nuclear concessions required by Washington in any final agreement, according to what Axios reported, citing three informed sources, confirming that CIA Director John Ratcliffe informed President Donald Trump and senior officials of this information.
Iran’s intentions and obligations
Skeptics within the US administration rule out that Iran will sign a nuclear agreement on American terms, and that it will benefit from the memorandum of understanding more than the United States.
According to two sources, Ratcliffe is not the only skeptic within the Trump team, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth expressed concerns and raised questions about the agreement during internal discussions, while Vice President J.D. Vance and envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner defended moving forward with it. The website stated that the period leading up to the announcement of the agreement on Sunday witnessed a series of high-level meetings that brought together Trump and his advisors to discuss its details.
According to the sources, during those meetings, Trump and his team discussed information collected by several American intelligence services that showed that the way Iranian officials were talking about the agreement among themselves was not consistent with what they were communicating to the mediators and the United States, according to Axios.
The website quoted one of the sources as saying: Intelligence information indicates that Iran’s intentions are not consistent with its obligations under the agreement.
A White House official confirmed that “Trump listens to all opinions on any issue, but everyone realizes that he is the final decision maker.”
He added that the memorandum of understanding “meets all the red lines that the administration set long ago, which ensure that Iran will never possess a nuclear weapon, that it will not retain highly enriched uranium, and that it will not be able to hold the global energy supply hostage.”
Discuss the next phase of negotiations
Vance, Witkoff and Kushner are scheduled to meet on Friday with Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, along with mediators from Pakistan and Qatar, to discuss the next phase of negotiations.
According to an informed source, the memorandum stipulates that the United States and Iran are committed to settling the fate of the stored enriched materials, and to discuss the issue of future enrichment and other agreed-upon issues related to Iran’s nuclear needs, based on a satisfactory framework to be agreed upon in the final agreement.
He added that the memorandum stipulates that Iran will maintain the status quo in its nuclear program throughout the duration of the negotiations, while the United States will refrain from imposing new sanctions or deploying additional forces in the region.
If a final nuclear agreement is reached, the United States will withdraw within 30 days the forces it mobilized during the war, and the sanctions imposed on Iran will be lifted according to an agreed upon timetable, according to the source.
On the other hand, two high-ranking American officials confirmed that any gains that Iran may achieve will remain linked to taking concrete steps
One of the officials said that the United States will be able to know within two to three weeks whether Iran is serious about making concessions in the nuclear file, adding that if that does not happen, the process may stop without Tehran achieving significant gains.
