By Elwely Elwelly and Jana Choukeir
May 27 (Reuters) – Tehran would restore shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to pre-war levels within a month in a framework deal with the U.S. to also include withdrawing U.S. forces from Iran’s vicinity, Iranian state television reported on Wednesday.
The report said the U.S. would end a naval blockade of Iranian shipping, citing a memorandum of understanding being negotiated between the two sides to end the war which has choked global energy supplies through the strategic waterway.
Iranian state TV said it had obtained an unofficial draft of the MOU though it was not final and may not be agreed.
The U.S. denied the report, saying it was “complete fabrication” in a White House statement on social media.
Iran’s government did not comment.
The issue of U.S. troops in the region also needs further discussion, the TV report said without being more specific.
There was no mention of Iran’s nuclear programme which the U.S. wants disbanded.
The state TV report was the latest signal of possible progress towards a deal, although publicly Tehran and Washington have outlined positions starkly at odds and the potential terms outlined by the broadcaster did not appease all U.S. demands.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday it may take a few more days, after President Donald Trump had raised hopes over the weekend for an imminent end to the war.
Key sticking points have included reopening and management of the waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flowed before the conflict and the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear capacity.
Oil prices fell more than 5% on Wednesday after the Iranian TV report.
It was not immediately clear what a U.S. military pullback as described by Iranian state television would look like.
The U.S. military has some 15,000 troops currently enforcing a blockade of Iran and has thousands of additional forces at bases throughout the region, including in Gulf states like Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
U.S. naval vessels, some with thousands of sailors and Marines aboard, regularly transit the region, stopping in ports including in Oman. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
NUCLEAR ISSUE FOR A SECOND ROUND
Iranian sources have said talks on the nuclear issue will come in a second round of negotiations – something that may not be acceptable to some of Trump’s closest supporters.
Trump, who will meet with his top aides at the White House on Wednesday, has said dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon was the key aim of the war. Iran says the programme is for peaceful purposes only.
Earlier on Wednesday, a senior Iranian official told reporters on the sidelines of the first International Security Forum in Moscow that reopening the strait remained a sticking point.
“As long as we have not agreed on all issues, we consider that nothing has been agreed,” Iran’s deputy secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Bagheri Kani, told reporters when asked about a deal on reopening the waterway.
State TV said the framework, which excludes military vessels and envisages Iran managing ship traffic through the strait in cooperation with Oman, was not yet finalised and that Tehran would take no steps without “tangible verification”.
The conflict, which began on February 28, has killed thousands and caused an unprecedented oil supply shock, pushing up the costs of fuel, fertilizer and food.
It has also created political problems for Trump at home, where polls show the war is deeply unpopular with the public six months before mid-term elections.
Even as peace talks continued, the U.S. launched a series of what it called defensive strikes on Tuesday in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province targeting missile sites and boats attempting to lay mines.
Iran’s foreign ministry said the strikes represented a “gross violation” of a tenuous ceasefire in place for nearly seven weeks.
(Reporting by Reuters’ bureaux; Writing by Sharon Singleton; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
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