Tehran/Washington — A ceasefire between Iran and the United States has descended into a war of competing narratives, with senior Iranian officials publicly repudiating nearly every claim made by Donald Trump about the terms of the agreement, raising urgent questions about whether any durable deal exists at all.
Trump announced that Iran had agreed to halt uranium enrichment on its soil and that both countries would jointly excavate enriched uranium buried beneath the rubble of bombed Iranian nuclear facilities, with the material to be transferred to the United States. He also declared the Strait of Hormuz fully open, claimed sea mines had been removed or were in the process of removal, and confirmed that a US naval blockade of Iranian ports remained in place. Iran, he added, would not recover billions of dollars in frozen assets held abroad under American sanctions.
Within hours, Tehran’s response was unambiguous. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Iran’s parliament, rejected all of Trump’s claims on Saturday. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps went further, announcing that the Strait of Hormuz was once again under strict management and heavily restricted, citing what it described as continued acts of piracy and maritime theft carried out under the cover of Washington’s naval blockade.
The contradictions were not limited to military posture. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated on social media that the strait had been declared completely open for the remaining duration of the ceasefire — a position that directly contradicted the IRGC’s announcement made the same day. The divergence between Iran’s foreign ministry and its most powerful military institution underscored the fractured nature of decision-making in Tehran at a moment of acute national pressure.
Financial markets registered the turbulence immediately. The Iranian rial, already battered by seven weeks of a state-imposed near-total internet shutdown, was trading at approximately 1.46 million to the US dollar on Saturday morning. After the IRGC announced renewed restrictions on the strait, the rial weakened further to around 1.51 million. Oil prices, meanwhile, fell below $91 per barrel following Trump’s initial announcements, reflecting trader expectations of eased supply disruptions — expectations the IRGC’s statement quickly complicated. Traders had placed over $1 billion in bets tied to the Iran conflict.
The two-week ceasefire, reached on April 8, has provided only a fragile pause in hostilities. Pakistan has been playing an active mediating role, facilitating negotiations between the two sides. Ghalibaf himself led the Iranian delegation to talks held in Islamabad earlier in the month, signalling the importance Tehran has placed on the diplomatic channel even as its officials publicly dispute the substance of any emerging agreement.
Inside Iran, the political atmosphere is volatile. State media broadcast footage of armed convoys moving through the streets of Tehran, vehicles draped in the flags of Hezbollah and Iraq’s Hashd al-Shaabi, projecting an image of defiant solidarity with allied militant groups. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has not made a public appearance in weeks; his presence has been limited to written statements attributed to him by state media, including one released Saturday to mark Army Day.
The political cost of the conflict is being felt within Iran’s own institutions. Morteza Mahmoudvand, a Tehran representative in the Iranian parliament, stated that Araghchi would have faced impeachment were it not for the war providing political cover. The remark illustrated the depth of internal dissatisfaction with the foreign minister’s handling of negotiations, even as he remains the public face of Iran’s diplomatic engagement.
Trump also addressed the situation in Lebanon, insisting that a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon was entirely unrelated to the Iran agreement — a framing that appeared designed to prevent any perception that Washington had offered concessions on multiple fronts simultaneously.
The fundamental dispute between Washington and Tehran now centres on whether Iran has genuinely agreed to surrender its enrichment programme and submit to the physical removal of its nuclear material, or whether Trump’s characterisation represents a maximalist interpretation of a far more limited understanding. With the IRGC and the foreign ministry offering contradictory signals on the same day, and with Pakistan working to arrange a further round of negotiations, the gap between the two sides’ public positions remains vast.
The coming days will test whether the ceasefire framework can survive the weight of those contradictions — or whether the competing narratives will themselves become a trigger for renewed confrontation.
