Senior US official warns Iran MoU secrecy will backfire
"We're already getting excoriated by Republicans for not releasing the text of other MOUs," the official says
A senior US official criticized the administration's handling of the Iran issue, telling i24NEWS that "the secret shroud around the Iran MOU is par for the course and will come back to bite us." The official added, "We're already getting excoriated by Republicans for not releasing the text of other MOUs," noting that the criticism has so far remained largely private.
The official pointed to a similar precedent: an unreleased MoU between the State Department and United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), an agency the official said consistently published false and misleading data during the Israel-Hamas war.
This comes as negotiators work to release the text quickly of the MoU, even as they downplay the significance of its language. According to one official who spoke to CNN, "people shouldn't read too much into the language of the MoU," as critical back-channel commitments from Iran are not reflected in the text. The document reportedly states only that Iran "reiterates that it will never produce nuclear weapons," without detailing specifics on its enriched uranium stockpile.
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While the text has not been released publicly, copies of the agreement have circulated among European and G7 officials gathered in Évian-les-Bains.
But it’s not just lawmakers in the US that have been kept in the dark. The US denied Israel's request to view the MoU before the signing ceremony, despite IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon being a part of the deal. Israeli officials have not confirmed any pullback from Lebanon, and fighting remains active in the region.
According to The National, mediators have gone to lengths to prevent Israeli intelligence from tracking the talks, going so far as to use handwritten notes and hold in-person meetings, including aboard US Navy ships in the Gulf. It was even reported that mediators fed misinformation to uninvolved officials and media to mislead Israeli spies.
Israel did not take part in the talks and has said it is not bound by the agreement.