Mohammad Javad Zarif, foreign Minister of Iran, had a talk with Charlie Rose months after JCPOA (commonly known as Iran nuclear deal) disccussing the agreement and other related issues. In this talk, Zarif refers to the agreement as:
It was a deal not a treaty.
Consulting various dictionaries, no clear difference can be found between the two words. I would appreciate it if you could clarify this for me.
The link to the talk is provided below:
Best Answer
Without knowing the full story about the Iran deal, to me a deal is not as formal as a treaty.
A deal could be established even by verbal assurance, whereas a treaty requires (per the dictionary definition) a formal ratification by a nation.
In the case where a "deal" has been signed by a nation's representative, the difference may then be in the wording. A "treaty" implies that the decisions within are formally binding or are more restrictive, but a "deal" may contain no more than an agreement of understanding or particular aims rather than binding items.