Iran’s president said Tehran agrees on the need to return to the Islamabad understanding and to honor its commitments, and welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping’s support for that return, according to posts carried by the financial newswire account @FirstSquawk on Friday evening.
The two statements from @FirstSquawk tracked closely together, the first landing at 19:02 UTC and the second at 19:13 UTC, eleven minutes apart. The second attributed the welcome of Xi’s support directly to Iran’s president. Neither post identified the venue or the interlocutor, and the Islamabad memorandum of understanding — the framework the Iranian president is now citing — has been the subject of regional diplomacy for some time, with Pakistan positioning itself as a go-between.
The Iranian president’s remarks land in a week when Tehran has been signaling a broader push toward a settlement. Regional coverage carried by ABC News described what it called a “major atmosphere of mistrust” in the Iranian president’s exchanges with journalists, while other reporting said Tehran wants a deal with Washington before November’s midterm elections and has floated a seven-day plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Separately, Pakistan’s DAWN reported that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in a meeting with the Iranian president, said the Islamabad memorandum remains “fully acceptable” to Iran and reaffirmed Pakistan’s readiness to keep playing what he called a “sincere and constructive role in support of regional peace and stability.”
The Xi dimension adds a second track. Chinese President Xi Jinping was in Washington for a state visit — his first official state visit since the end of the Obama administration, per the Guardian’s live coverage — and departed the capital on the same day the Iranian statement surfaced. The Guardian reported that President Trump said the two leaders discussed the Iran war during their talks, and that further meetings are planned in China and Florida. The account @OANN posted an image Friday afternoon showing Madame Peng Liyuan and Xi Jinping waving as they boarded a plane to return to China following the state visit to Washington.
What the Iranian president means in practice by “returning to the Islamabad understanding” is not spelled out in the posts carried by @FirstSquawk, and no text of a revised or reaffirmed memorandum has been released. The phrase is being attributed to him, not confirmed as a formal diplomatic step.
On the other side of the Atlantic, a papal flight became the setting for a different kind of exchange. Pope Leo XIV, traveling from Rome to Paris, was asked about President Trump’s decision to bar several news outlets from the White House. Speaking to reporters aboard the plane, the pontiff said press coverage was “very important.”
In the transcript posted by @CBSNews, the pope was asked directly about colleagues at CNN “having difficulties with the White House.” He replied: “I just wondered if you had a word for some of our colleagues at CNN, having difficulties with the White House. I mean, I know you’ve spoken in freedom of the press. I’m very happy that here you are, Obama. And with coverage, I think it’s very important that we have it all the way around.” The transcript as posted contains a transcription artifact in the reference to “Obama”; it is quoted here exactly as the network’s caption file rendered it.
@NBCNews framed the exchange as a contrast, saying the pope welcomes journalists to chronicle his travels “in sharp contrast to President Trump, who recently kicked three news outlets out of the White House before having to undo that ban.” @CBSNews noted that the pope reaffirmed his support for freedom of the press after being asked about the president’s decision.
The White House portion of the @CBSNews post is truncated mid-sentence, and no further White House statement was included in the material available.
The pope’s comments came as he began what @FoxNews described as a historic four-day visit to France. French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed him to the Élysée Palace in Paris, where, according to @FoxNews, the pontiff reflected on his French heritage during remarks at the presidential palace. @FoxNews described the trip as the first formal papal visit to France.
Two storylines, then, converged on the same news cycle without touching each other: an Iranian president tying his country’s diplomatic path to an understanding reached in Islamabad and endorsed from Beijing, and a pontiff using a press availability on a tarmac to defend the reporters who cover him. The first is a claim about commitments; the second is a remark about access. Neither has been translated into a document.
Next News Network could not independently verify the Iranian president’s statements about returning to the Islamabad understanding, nor the scope of Xi Jinping’s support as described in the posts carried by @FirstSquawk.
What is not yet known: whether the Islamabad memorandum has been formally revived, what commitments Iran is specifically agreeing to honor, and whether the Chinese government has issued its own readout of the support attributed to Xi. It is also not yet known what, if any, formal change followed the pope’s remarks, or whether the White House responded to them.
Our Take
The press spent Friday night chasing two stories that don’t belong in the same sentence except that both involve people talking past the institutions they lead. Iran’s president says he wants to return to the Islamabad understanding and welcomes Xi Jinping’s blessing — but a memorandum of understanding is not a memorandum of results, and the same regime that is now describing an atmosphere of mistrust with Washington is the one that has spent years using negotiations as cover. The welcome mat from Beijing should not be mistaken for a guarantee; China’s interest in the Strait of Hormuz is China’s interest, not ours.
Meanwhile, the Vatican’s press-freedom sermon writes itself. Pope Leo can welcome journalists aboard his plane, and good for him — but the contrast the networks are drawing is a domestic political cudgel, not a revelation. If the White House wants to argue about which outlets get credentials, that is a fight between the president and the press corps, and the pope’s opinion of it carries no more weight than any other foreign dignitary’s. The press should cover the credential dispute as a press dispute, not recruit a pontiff to referee it. And the Iranian file deserves harder scrutiny than a pair of wire headlines and a state visit photo op will ever provide.
