President Donald Trump said early today there was a “very good chance” the US could reach an agreement with Iran to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, hours after saying he had postponed a planned military attack to allow negotiations to continue.
Trump said leaders from key US allies in the Middle East had asked him to delay a planned military attack on Iran scheduled for today to allow negotiations with Tehran to continue, while warning the US remained prepared to launch a large-scale assault if no agreement is reached.
“There seems to be a very good chance that they can work something out. If we can do that without bombing the hell out of them, I would be very happy,” Trump told reporters gathered for a drug price announcement.
Trump said he had paused a planned attack against Iran to allow for negotiations to take place on a deal to end the US-Israeli war, after Iran sent a new peace proposal to Washington.
Trump said he had instructed the US military that “we will NOT be doing the scheduled attack of Iran today, but have further instructed them to be prepared to go forward with a full, large scale assault of Iran, on a moment’s notice, in the event that an acceptable Deal is not reached.”
Trump, under pressure to reach an accord that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and limit the economic fallout of the war that he started in February, has previously expressed hope that a deal was close on ending the war, only for no agreement to materialise.
In his post, he said the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE had requested that he hold off on the previously undisclosed attack because “a Deal will be made, which will be very acceptable to the United States of America, as well as all Countries in the Middle East, and beyond.”
Trump’s post came after Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed that Tehran’s views had been “conveyed to the American side through Pakistan” but gave no details.
A Pakistani source confirmed that Islamabad, which has conveyed messages between the sides in the war in the Middle East since hosting the only round of peace talks last month, had shared the latest proposal with Washington.
But the source suggested progress had been difficult.
The sides “keep changing their goalposts,” the Pakistani source said, adding: “We don’t have much time.”
The Iranian proposal, as described by a senior Iranian source, appeared similar in many respects to Iran’s previous offer, which Trump rejected last week as “garbage”.
However, in an apparent softening of Washington’s stance, the senior Iranian source said the US had agreed to release a quarter of Iran’s frozen funds – totalling tens of billions of dollars – held in foreign banks. Iran wants all the assets released.
The Iranian source also said Washington had shown more flexibility in agreeing to let Iran continue some peaceful nuclear activity under supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The US has not confirmed that it has agreed to anything in the talks.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency separately quoted an unidentified source as saying the US had agreed to waive oil sanctions on Iran while negotiations were under way.
Iranian officials did not immediately comment on Tasnim’s report, which a US official, who declined to be named, said was false.
&uuid=(email))