US official claims Iran asked to withhold text of MOU until after signing on Friday

Attempting to explain why the US has refrained from releasing the text of the MOU if it was purportedly already signed on Sunday, a senior US official briefing reporters claims Tehran asked that it not be released until the Friday signing ceremony.

“The motto that we want to have with this deal is no side-deals and full transparency, so it was unfortunate we weren’t able to put it out right away,” the US official says.

“We were trying to accommodate their domestic messaging and their domestic politics, and we’re trying to build trust with them, and that’s what they asked us to do,” the US official says.

The briefing call began with a second senior US official reading out the text of the MOU, as the White House apparently decided that it did not want to wait any longer in publicizing the text.