Donald Trump says he has a peace deal with Iran. But does he?

Samantha Selinger-Morris· Host0:00

[upbeat music] What have Iran and the United States actually agreed to in this memorandum of understanding that the two countries announced over the weekend? I'm Samantha Selinger-Morris, and you're listening to the Morning Edition from The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. Today, international and political editor Peter Hartcher helps break it down for us to work out if it's a peace deal, a ceasefire, or something else entirely. It's June the 18th. Peter, welcome back to the podcast.

Peter Hartcher· Guest0:40

Pleasure, Samantha.

Samantha Selinger-Morris· Host0:40

Okay. Peter, let's start off with what are the main takeaways from this memorandum of understanding that the US and Iran have settled on over this war? Trump has called it a peace deal. Is it?

Peter Hartcher· Guest0:51

No, it's not. F- the first thing about the memorandum of understanding is that we haven't seen any memorandum of understanding yet.

Samantha Selinger-Morris· Host1:00

Mm.

Peter Hartcher· Guest1:01

Uh, they tell us that they'll publish it after they've formally signed it. So everything we say about it is based on statements, uh, from the protagonists and assumptions, uh, and expert interpretation. That's the first thing. So we have to qualify everything we say with that. The second thing is, no, it's certainly not a peace agreement. All it does, and this is really important, it does, at least in principle, restore the flow of oil. All