Here's the latest
• Potential agreement: US President Donald Trump says an agreement with Iran is scheduled to be signed today but Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps pushed back on the president’s timing, adding that “the memorandum has not yet been finalized.”
• Questions remain: The conflicting messages over the timing is the latest in a divergence in accounts between both sides. Qatari negotiators have traveled to Tehran to help facilitate the finalization of the agreement, a source told CNN.
• Next steps: Officials are planning for a virtual signing, sources told CNN. If the memorandum of understanding is signed, it would kick off a new 60-day period of negotiations, a US official said Friday.
What to know about Iran's nuclear program
When US President Donald Trump said an agreement with Iran is “scheduled to be signed” on Sunday, he added that “when all is calm, we will go in and get the Nuclear Dust, buried deep under the powerful sunken granite mountains.”
Iran has spent decades developing its nuclear program. It maintains the program is solely for peaceful energy purposes and plans to build additional nuclear power plants to meet domestic energy needs and free up more oil for export.
Nuclear plants require a fuel called uranium – and according to the UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency, no other country has the kind of uranium that Iran currently does without also having a nuclear weapons program.
President Dwight Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” program was a deal between the US and developing nations, which unknowingly laid the foundations for one of the most controversial nuclear programs in the world. CNN’s Leila Gharagozlou reports.
Here’s what else to know about Tehran’s nuclear program:
When it began: The US launched a nuclear program with Iran in 1957. Back then, a Western-friendly monarch ruled Iran. Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Western nations have worried the country could use its nuclear program to produce atomic weapons.
Why it’s controversial: In the early 2000s, international inspectors announced that they had found traces of highly-enriched uranium at an Iranian plant. Iran temporarily halted enrichment, but resumed it in 2006. It prompted international sanctions against the country. After years of negotiations, Iran and six world powers in 2015 agreed to a deal that limited Iran’s nuclear threat in return for lighter sanctions. In 2018, Trump pulled out of the deal and initiated new sanctions to cripple the Iranian economy.
Whether Iran has nuclear weapons: It’s unclear how close Iran might be to actually building a nuclear bomb, if at all, but it has made significant progress in producing the key ingredient: highly-enriched uranium. After Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018, Tehran said it would stop complying with parts of the agreement, and started increasing uranium enrichment and uranium stockpiles. It also removed all of the IAEA equipment previously installed for surveillance.
Where things stand: Iran in recent weeks has escalated efforts to seal off its uranium cache, according to sources familiar with US intelligence. In mid-May, the US military was prepared to conduct an operation to seize the nuclear material that was ultimately deemed to be too high-risk, CNN previously reported. Trump hit pause after being warned it would likely prompt severe Iranian retaliation and concern about the potential for a significant number of US casualties, sources said.
CNN’s Mostafa Salem, Helen Regan and Lou Robinson contributed reporting.
"Until our last breath, for Iran": Soccer team vow to do their best ahead of World Cup opener
Iran’s national soccer team held their last training session in Mexico before they head to Los Angeles for their first World Cup 2026 match scheduled on Monday.
“Until our last breath, for Iran,” players, coaches and officials chanted loudly as they formed a ring on the pitch, as seen in a video shared by Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency on Sunday.
The team are, for now, based in Tijuana and will have to commute to the United States for their World Cup matches, after the US denied visas to 15 Iran Football Federation officials, according to Reuters.
The Iranians were originally supposed to be based in Tucson, Arizona.
Iran are scheduled to face New Zealand on Monday and Belgium on June 21. Both matches take place in Los Angeles. They will meet Egypt in Seattle on June 26.
Source: Qatari negotiators head to Iran to help with agreement finalization
Qatari negotiators, in coordination with the United States, have flown to Tehran Sunday morning to help facilitate the finalization of the agreement, a source with knowledge of the situation told CNN.
The delegation held consultations with Iranian officials, reported the semi-official Tasnim News Agency.
The latest meeting comes as the US and Iran have offered differing accounts of the terms of the potential agreement, including when they will sign the memorandum of understanding. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has pushed back President Donald Trump’s announcement that the agreement will be signed on Sunday.
Iranian and Qatari officials also met in Tehran earlier in the week, where Iran presented its draft of the proposed agreement through the mediators, according to a source.
This post has been updated with additional information.
Slain supreme leader Khamenei's funeral to take place from July 4, Iranian media says
The death of Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei stunned Iranians, many of whom had never known anything but his authoritarian leadership.
Now, more than three months after he was killed at the start of the US-Israeli war, the date of his burial has been announced.
The funeral will begin in the country’s capital of Tehran on July 4, with the burial set to take place on July 9 in the northeastern city of Mashhad, Iranian state media reported Saturday.
The burial ceremony will comprise of a two-day farewell to the slain former leader in Tehran and a funeral procession through the capital. A second funeral procession will be conducted in the holy city of Qom the following day.
A final commemorative procession will be held in Mashhad on July 9 before Khamenei’s remains are buried in the holy city’s sacred shrine.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was Iran’s hardline supreme leader who ruled the country for almost four decades before he was killed in joint US-Israeli strikes at the beginning of the conflict on February 28. His death sparked celebration among Iranians who opposed his rule and despair from pro-regime loyalists.
Khamenei was succeeded by his second son, Mojtaba Khamenei, a little over a week later by the 88-member Assembly of Experts. The elevation of Mojtaba was considered an act of defiance by the Islamic Republic, after US President Donald Trump deemed him an “unacceptable” choice during deliberations.
Since his appointment, Mojtaba has issued various purported messages to the people of Iran, but has yet to be seen in public.
The US downed Iranian drones in recent days as both sides signaled optimism on agreement
Despite the US and Iran both signaling that a prospective agreement between them could be close, Tehran has continued to target vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Washington.
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump announced a “great settlement” that could resolve the war, suggesting it would be finalized in the coming days.
That evening, however, the US military shot down two Iranian attack drones that were targeting vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, according to a US defense official.
Trump said in a social media post that Iran’s continued targeting of ships in the strait was “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.”
US Central Command also announced early Saturday morning local time in Iran that US forces had shot down “multiple one-way attack drones” that had attempted to “strike commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”
CNN’s Kaanita Iyer, Lauren Kent and Michael Williams contributed to this reporting.
Why officials are planning for virtual signing of the US-Iran agreement
Plans to sign the memorandum of understanding virtually came together over the last day to cement the agreement quickly and avoid any eleventh-hour spoilers, officials familiar with the matter said.
While President Donald Trump said last week he expected the signing to occur in person in Europe, with Vice President JD Vance attending for the US, those plans did not come to pass.
That is due in part to complications over schedule. The president and vice president do not travel abroad simultaneously for security and continuity purposes, and Trump is scheduled to depart for a G7 summit in France early Monday. Getting Vance to and from a signing event in Europe in time for Trump to depart would have been difficult.
Instead, an electronic signing was offered to get the agreement finalized. The fear among some of the mediators is that the longer it goes unsigned, the greater the likelihood that something upends progress or one or both sides reneges, according to a person familiar with the matter.
As it stands, Washington and Tehran have each offered somewhat conflicting accounts of what is in the agreement, including what financial relief Iran will see. Whether those disputes are merely differences in public messaging, or reflect something deeper that could cause the agreement to collapse, remains unclear.
What the US and Iran have said about when they're signing an agreement
While the US and Iran have both expressed optimism that they are near an agreement, they have offered differing accounts on what the terms are — including when they are signing the agreement.
President Donald Trump said an agreement with Iran is “scheduled to get signed” on Sunday and would reopen the Strait of Hormuz. CNN’s Julia Benbrook reports Iran has not committed to signing the agreement, and accounts differ on what it would include.
Here’s what they have said:
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday an agreement with Iran “is scheduled to get signed tomorrow,” adding that “immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL.”
He said that “hopefully, this process will all work out quickly, easily, and smoothly” but added that if it doesn’t, “we have the ultimate alternative.”
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a key mediator, said that they are “closer to a peace deal than ever before.” He said on Saturday the terms of the potential agreement could be finalized in the “next 24 hours.”
However, Iran’s military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), denied that Tehran would sign an agreement with the US on Sunday and criticized Trump’s “unusual insistence.”
The IRGC described the timeline as a “test for Iran’s negotiating team” and that Trump’s announcement comes “despite Iranian negotiators explicitly stating that the memorandum has not yet been finalized and that signing on Sunday is definitely not happening.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei also said Saturday that the signing of the framework will “not be tomorrow,” according to Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency.
“The possibility that it will happen in the coming days is not ruled out,” Baghaei said, according to Tasnim. “However, due to the other party’s instability, we must be cautious about any statements regarding this process.”
CNN’s Mitchell McCluskey, Catherine Nicholls, Mostafa Salem and Julia Benbrook contributed reporting.
Trump says agreement will be signed Sunday, Iran pushes back on timing. Here's the latest
On Saturday, US President Donald Trump said an agreement with Iran “is scheduled to get signed tomorrow,” adding that the signing would trigger the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
While Tehran has also signaled the sides are close to agreeing on terms, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps denied plans for a Sunday signing and criticized Trump’s “unusual insistence” on that day. It marks the latest divergence in US and Iranian statements during a flurry of diplomacy in recent days.
If a memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran is signed, it will kick off a new 60-day period of negotiations on how to implement the framework, a US official said Friday.
Here’s what else you need to know:
- Virtual signing: Plans for an in-person gathering have been scrapped in favor of a potential electronic signing, officials familiar with the matter told CNN. The decision was made due to logistical challenges and in hopes of avoiding delays that might derail the negotiation process, one source said.
- Trump to meet with Middle Eastern leaders: The US president will depart the White House early Monday morning, arriving in France for this week’s G7 summit. Tuesday afternoon will see Trump join a working lunch with G7 and Middle Eastern leaders, a senior administration official said.
- Diplomatic calls: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke to Trump on Saturday about his efforts to end the conflict with Iran, emphasizing the importance that “any deal delivers a durable and lasting peace.” And Qatar’s prime minister spoke with his Pakistani counterpart in a separate call Saturday, in which he emphasized support for Islamabad’s role in mediating US-Iran talks.
- Tehran residents skeptical of potential agreement: Here’s how some people in the Iranian capital have been responding to the latest developments.
CNN’s Julia Benbrook, Mitchell McCluskey, DJ Judd, Kevin Liptak, Elise Hammond, Abbas Al Lawati, Lauren Kent, Eyad Kourdi, Charlotte Reck, Max Foster, Catherine Nicholls and Duarte Mendonca contributed to this report.
