By Susan Heavey and Parisa Hafezi
WASHINGTON/DUBAI, June 11 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump called off new U.S. military strikes on Iran on Thursday, saying "final points" of an initial peace deal had been approved and details of a signing ceremony would be announced shortly.
Iran did not immediately respond to Trump's announcement, which came hours after the president said the U.S. military would attack Iran for a third consecutive night.
Since mid-March, Trump has repeatedly claimed that a deal with Iran to end the war is close.
Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported that Tehran had not approved the text of any agreement.
Still, Iranian and Western sources said earlier on Thursday that efforts to reach an interim deal to end hostilities have intensified. A fragile ceasefire has been in place since early April.
Three Iranian sources said a political understanding had been reached, but some issues remained to be discussed in detail, including a mechanism for the release of tens of billions of dollars of Iranian oil revenues frozen in foreign banks.
The deal would temporarily ease Iran's grip on the Strait of Hormuz and end a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports, the sources said. Unresolved questions over Tehran's nuclear development program and its stockpile of highly enriched uranium would be left for future talks.
It was unclear whether such a deal would satisfy critics within Trump's Republican Party who say that any agreement must close Tehran's path to developing a nuclear weapon.
Analysts have said Trump is concerned that any deal will be compared with a 2015 agreement that he criticized as overly lenient. Trump pulled the U.S. out of that accord in 2018 during his first term in office.
"Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved," Trump said on social media.
"The Naval Blockade will remain in full force and effect until this Transaction is finalized — Time and place of the signing to be announced shortly," he added. Since mid-April, the U.S. has been blocking ships entering or leaving Iranian ports.
Trump said the agreement had been approved by "the highest level" of Iranian leadership, as well as other countries in the region including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
U.S. stocks rose and oil prices fell on the news.
The war has killed thousands of people, mainly in Iran and Lebanon, and pushed up global oil prices since the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran on February 28.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Andy Sullivan and Hugh Lawson; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Don Durfee)
