US lifts naval blockade after Iran deal signed

The US has dropped its naval blockade of Iran after the two countries signed a deal to end the war in the Middle East - despite Iran's supreme leader saying he had a different view and that Donald Trump signed the deal "out of desperation".

US Central Command confirmed the lifting of the blockade on X "in accordance with the President's direction", and US enforcement of the blockade has ceased.

Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said he initially disagreed with the deal, but allowed it to go ahead after assurances from Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

The deal sets out an immediate halt to military operations on all fronts and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, among other things.

US Vice-President JD Vance defended the deal, saying that Iran will not receive money or sanctions relief unless it meets obligations set out in the agreement.

The memorandum of understanding - the MoU - does not give Iran any benefits until the country proves it will "comply fully and change their behaviour", including following through on a commitment in the MoU to destroy its stockpile of enriched uranium, and showing it will not fund proxy groups in the region.

Speaking to reporters at a White House briefing on Thursday, Vance said the deal had come into effect, triggering a 60-day period of further negotiations, and that he would likely head to Switzerland for "technical negotiations".

But he did not state when he would go, adding that Iran was "not an easy country" and that they were trying to figure out exactly when that was going to happen".

The official signing ceremony for the MoU was set to take place in Switzerland on Friday. However, mediator Pakistan told the BBC that the ceremony was cancelled because the deal had already been signed remotely.

US and Iranian representatives are still expected to meet in Switzerland for further talks.

In a written statement published on Iranian media, a message from Khamenei said officials working on the deal came to this stage "out of sincere concern and goodwill", and that Trump "out of desperation, used all kinds of leverage to bring this about".

Without elaborating, he said he held a "different view", and said that while there will be "in-person negotiations in the future" between Tehran and Washington, he stressed that this "will not mean acceptance of the enemy's position".

This is the first time the supreme leader has responded to the agreement.

Khamanei has not been seen in public since he took office in March following the killing of his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February that sparked the regional war.

Trump did not directly respond to Khamanei's statement, but posted on Truth Social that he expects a ceasefire to take effect "on all fronts", including between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, and that he expects countries in the Middle East to "maintain their commitment to allowing our negotiations" to take place.

After the signing of the deal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed the importance of maintaining Israel's close ties with the US, saying Washington had stood "shoulder to shoulder" with the country during the war with Iran.

Netanyahu's comments come after members of the Israeli prime minister's cabinet criticised the deal.

In response, Vance said critics of the deal should "wake up and smell the reality," adding: "If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world."

Vance did not specify in the briefing who in the Israeli cabinet had criticised the deal, but in an interview with the New York Times also published on Thursday, he named the country's national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich as critics of the deal.

He said: "I guess my response to them would be - what is your exact proposal? You're a country of nine million people. You can't just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have."

The US-Iran agreement to extend the ceasefire centres around 14 core points , including an end to conflict "on all fronts", an end to the blockade, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, for Iran to never have a nuclear weapon, and commits a $300bn fund for the "reconstruction and economic development" of the country - although the US is not required to contribute.

But both Israel and Hezbollah have carried out strikes against each other since the US-Iran agreement was announced, including strikes reported in Lebanon on Thursday that killed three people.

Israel argues its conflict against Hezbollah is separate from its war on Iran. While Hezbollah has rejected the terms of the deal between Iran and the US.

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