US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that a second round of talks with Iran could take place this weekend, a week after negotiations in Islamabad failed to result in an agreement to permanently end the war.
Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump expressed his hope that a temporary extension of the two-week truce set to expire on April 21 won’t be necessary and that the sides would reach a deal for a permanent ceasefire.
“Iran wants to make a deal, and we’re dealing very nicely with them,” Trump said.
Trump said he may even travel to Pakistan for a signing ceremony if a deal is reached. “If a deal is signed in Islamabad I may go,” Trump said. “They want me.”
He also claimed the US blockade of Iranian-linked ships trying to cross through the Strait of Hormuz has been an effective tool in bringing Iran to the table.
Trump insisted his red line is that Iran cannot be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. He then claimed that Tehran has already agreed to this demand and to give up its stockpile of highly-enriched uranium — which the Islamic Republic has not shown any indication that it is prepared to do.
“They’ve agreed to give us back the nuclear dust,” he said.
“We have a very good relationship with Iran right now… and I think it’s a combination of about four weeks of bombing and a very powerful blockade,” Trump added.
The United States earlier threatened to resume airstrikes on the Islamic Republic and maintain a naval blockade of its ports if Tehran refused to accept a deal to solve the conflict.
Israel launched its campaign against Iran, alongside the US, to degrade the Iranian regime’s military capabilities, distance threats posed by Iran — including its nuclear and ballistic missile programs — and “create the conditions” for the Iranian people to topple the regime, the military and other Israeli leaders have said.
Iranian state television on Thursday showed Pakistan’s powerful army chief Asim Munir meeting Iran’s speaker of parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led the Iranian delegation at the first round of talks last week, which ended without a deal.
The Iranian ambassador to the UN later said Tehran was “cautiously optimistic” about its negotiations on ending hostilities with the US and expressed hope for a “meaningful outcome.”
US Defense Secretary Hegseth said Thursday: “If Iran chooses poorly, then they will have a blockade and bombs dropping on infrastructure, power, and energy.”
Two Iranian sources said there were signs of a compromise emerging on the highly-enriched uranium stockpile, with Tehran considering shipping part, but not all, of it out of the country, something it had previously ruled out.
Washington has reportedly sought a 20-year suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment program, while Tehran has proposed suspending nuclear activity for five years — an offer US officials rejected.
While Iran, whose leaders are sworn to Israel’s destruction, denies seeking nuclear weapons, it has obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear facilities and enriched uranium to levels that have no peaceful application, calling it a sovereign right.
Its foreign ministry said Wednesday that Iran’s right to enrich uranium was “indisputable,” although the level of enrichment was “negotiable.”
While White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday that further talks between the US and Iran “would very likely” be in the Pakistani capital, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi said no date had been set for the next round of talks.
US Vice President JD Vance, who led the first round, has said Iran is being offered a “grand bargain” to end the war and address the decades-old dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said: “Iran is standing at a historic crossroads: one path is renouncing the ways of terror and nuclear armament… in line with the US proposal, the other leads to an abyss.
“If the Iranian regime chooses the second path, it will quickly discover there are even more painful targets than those we have already struck.”
Meanwhile, shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s crude oil normally flows, has remained disrupted by Iranian forces since the US-Israeli offensive began and is now the focus of the US blockade.
Washington has sought to turn the screws on Tehran with a blockade of its ports, with US Central Command claiming to have “completely halted economic trade going into and out of Iran by sea.”
CENTCOM said it had already turned back 13 vessels that tried to sail out of Iranian ports.
Keeping up the pressure, the United States slapped fresh sanctions on Iran’s oil industry on Wednesday, which US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said targeted “regime elites.”
Unless Washington relents, Iran’s armed forces “will not allow any exports or imports to continue in the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman and the Red Sea,” said the head of the Iranian military’s central command center Ali Abdollahi.
The military adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei also warned that Iran would sink American ships in the strait if the United States decides to “police” the key shipping channel.
While Iran’s conventional navy has been heavily damaged since the start of the war on February 28, the fleet of small boats and attack craft used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to patrol the strait remains largely intact, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Source:
www.timesofisrael.com
