“The oil has taken its biggest plunge and we’re into the low numbers – not quite back to the extent but we’re getting close to the numbers we were at before it all started,” he said during a meeting with Emmanuel Macron, the French president.
“The main thing is that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon, which is what it was all about because they probably would have used it.”
The terms of the memorandum of understanding include reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which is the path of a fifth of the world’s oil supply, and lifting the US blockade on Iranian ports.
It would also lead to the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear programme. Tehran’s highly enriched uranium would be destroyed on site and then taken out of the country, a senior administration official said.
Mr Vance confirmed to NBC News that international inspectors would be deployed to oversee this process. “Yes, absolutely,” Mr Vance said. “In fact, one of the core parts of the agreement is that the [International Atomic Energy Agency] and the United States are going to help Iran destroy the highly enriched stockpile.” He noted that a formal start date for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear inspections could be finalised during Friday’s meetings, expecting it to “happen very quickly” if the text is signed.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters that the US also agreed to release $24bn of Iran’s frozen assets, including via direct cash transfers, cooperation among regional countries and financial credit lines.
However, the same official dismissed the claim on Monday, saying Iran had received no financial reward in return for signing the agreement.
“The very simple fact is $0 of frozen assets have been released by the United States or any other country,” the official said.
Mr Vance said that while the White House was “open to a lot of things that are on the table”, the $24bn figure “just doesn’t appear anywhere in any of the texts that we’ve talked about with the Iranians”.
