- Trump says Tehran’s uranium must be “taken perfect care of.”
- Iran presents US ceasefire as a victory for Tehran amid Trump’s claims.
- Two sides agree on a ceasefire barely an hour before the deadline.
President Donald Trump said so AFP on Tuesday that the US had won a “total and complete victory” after reaching a two-week ceasefire deal with Iran.
In a phone call, Trump said he believed China had persuaded Iran to negotiate and said Tehran’s enriched uranium would be “perfectly taken care of.”
The ceasefire agreement came after more than a month of destructive attacks by the US and Israel and followed mediation by Pakistan.
The US leader appeared upbeat about the ceasefire with Iran, despite Tehran also seeing it as a victory for its side, and amid questions about exactly what both sides had agreed to.
The two sides agreed to the ceasefire barely an hour before Trump’s deadline to wipe out the Islamic Republic was set to expire.
“Total and complete victory. 100%. No doubt about it,” Trump said AFP in the brief call when asked if he was claiming victory with the ceasefire.
With uncertainty surrounding the arrangements for reopening the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic in particular, Trump insisted there was a strong framework for a long-term deal.
“We have a 15-point transaction, most of those things have been agreed upon. We’ll see what happens. We’ll see if it gets there,” Trump said.
The Republican president had said in his earlier announcement on his Truth Social network that Iran had given a 10-point proposal that was “workable”.
Trump would not say whether he would go back on his original threats to destroy Iran’s civilian power plants and bridges if the deal fell apart.
“You’ll have to see,” Trump said AFP.
Uranium ‘taken care of’
The fate of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is another key question after a war the US president said was aimed in part at ensuring Iran could never get a nuclear weapon.
But Trump insisted that the nuclear material would be covered by any peace deal.
“It will be perfectly taken care of, or I wouldn’t have settled,” Trump said, without giving any details about what would happen to the uranium.
Trump said he believed China had played a role in bringing Iran to the negotiating table.
“I hear yes,” Trump said when asked if Beijing was involved in getting key ally Tehran to negotiate a ceasefire.
The US president is due to travel to Beijing in mid-May to meet Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at a crucial summit between the two superpowers.
The trip was originally scheduled for early April, but Trump postponed it, saying he needed to stay in Washington to monitor the Iran war.
Beijing is a close partner of Tehran and the main buyer of Iranian oil, most of which passes through the strait.
But it also has strong economic ties to the Gulf states and has repeatedly criticized Iran’s attacks on them.
