President Donald Trump has formally signed a deal with Iran to end the conflict that began on 28 February when the US and Israel launched air strikes against Tehran and across the country. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.
The terms of the 14-point Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the US and Iran have been criticised over what is included and what is left out. The agreement lays the groundwork for talks on Iran's nuclear weapons programme and will also affect economic sanctions and access to the Strait of Hormuz.
Comparisons have inevitably been made between this deal and the 2015 Obama-era nuclear accord known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which Trump scrapped in his first term. BBC Verify has looked through key details of the documents to compare it with the situation during three distinct periods: when the JCPOA was in force between 2016 and 2018, before the war began on 28 February 2026, and the current situation.
The JCPOA, which included the UK, France, the EU, China and Russia, imposed specific limitations on Iran's nuclear programme. That highly technical document restricted Iran's stockpile of nuclear material to 300kg and said it could not enrich its uranium above 3.67% for 15 years. This level of enrichment is not high enough to be used in nuclear warheads but can be used in reactors to generate electricity. The JCPOA also allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to Iran's nuclear programme to ensure it was complying with the agreement.
The IAEA said Iran had been complying until Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA in 2018. Following the collapse of that deal Iran stepped up its nuclear programme. At the start of the war on 28 February 2026, Iran possessed approximately 440kg of uranium enriched to 60%, according to US officials. The material can be fairly quickly enriched to the 90% threshold needed for weapons-grade uranium.
While the new MoU text states that Iran "reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons" there is little detail about the issue in the document. There is similar language in the JCPOA. The new MoU also says the two parties "agreed to discuss the issue of enrichment" and to "resolve the disposition of stockpiled enriched material pursuant to a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon". However, the MoU actually makes no mention of destroying the stockpile, despite Trump saying that Iran's remaining nuclear material will be removed from the country.
The MoU text makes no mention of Iran's ballistic missiles. Trump said on 17 June that it would be "unfair" for Iran not to have these missiles given other countries in the region have them. In 2018, when he scrapped the JCPOA, Trump complained that the deal failed to address Iran's development of ballistic missiles.
The 2015 JCPOA did not involve the US paying Iran new money but provided sanctions relief and restored Iran's access to some of its own assets. An official at the US Treasury estimated in 2015 that unfrozen Iranian central bank assets were worth between $100bn and $125bn, but Tehran could only access around $50bn. Economic sanctions were re-imposed on Iran after Trump scrapped the JCPOA and were progressively stepped up. Before the war, sanctions had created extreme economic difficulties in Iran, contributing to country-wide protests in January. The US also placed sanctions on Iranian oil, though Iran partially circumvented them using a "shadow fleet" of tankers. The new MoU says the US will "terminate all types of sanctions" against Iran in an agreed-upon schedule.