President Trump said Saturday on Truth Social that a US-Iran deal is "scheduled to get signed" on Sunday and that the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which a large share of global seaborne oil passes, would be "OPEN TO ALL" immediately afterward. Hours later, Iran's foreign ministry cast doubt on the timing, and Pakistan, the named mediator, said it was preparing an electronic signing ceremony without confirming a date.
The contradiction between the two governments' accounts of when, and even whether, the deal will be signed is the story. Trump's claim of a done-in-24-hours arrangement sits beside Iran's "we will have to wait and see about the exact date" and the Iranian spokesman's pointed "it will not be tomorrow," according to BBC News.
What is on the table, per Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, is a memorandum of understanding, a non-binding framework rather than a treaty, with three named components: reopening the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic, lifting the package of US maritime restrictions on Iranian ports, and ending the Israel-Hezbollah war, where Hezbollah is the Iran-backed armed and political movement based in Lebanon. Nuclear-programme talks are deferred to a later stage.
Trump's post also introduced his own vocabulary for the unresolved nuclear question. He said the US would "go in and get" Iran's enriched uranium stockpiles, which he called "Nuclear Dust," "at the appropriate time, when all is calm." That language is his own framing, not a defined programme, and the actual disposition of Iran's enriched uranium is not part of the memorandum now scheduled to be signed. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, a position the Iranian government repeats and Western governments and inspectors dispute.
The deal also carries an explicit threat. Trump wrote that, in the absence of an agreement, the United States would use what he called the "ultimate alternative" to achieve its objectives, language that, in context, points to the use of force. The threat is part of the US negotiating posture, not a separate track.
Pakistan's role is the one concrete third-party element. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said finalisation was expected within 24 hours and that his government was "preparing for the electronic signing," a remote, digitally executed ceremony Pakistan says it is hosting once the text is finalised. Pakistan's foreign ministry did not name a specific hour.
What to watch: whether the US and Iranian sides converge on a single signing time before Sunday ends, whether Iran's parliament or Supreme National Security Council is asked to sign off on the memorandum, and whether the Hormuz reopening and the port-blockade lifting are sequenced together or staged. The "Nuclear Dust" retrieval language, and the "ultimate alternative" threat, will outlast the signing either way.