US President Donald Trump has had “very good talks” with Iran over the past 24 hours and a source said there was “a very good chance that a deal could be reached” as Iran considers a US peace proposal that would formally end the war.
President Trump on Wednesday signaled progress in ongoing talks between the two countries, saying Iran should halt its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and threatening to resume bombardment if talks break down.
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“Look, it’s very simple: Iran can’t have nuclear weapons, because nuclear weapons are powerful, but we want to keep them alive. We want to keep all of you alive,” he told reporters at the White House.
President Trump also said in an interview with US media outlet PBS that he was optimistic about reaching a deal with Iran before his scheduled visit to China next week.
“I think it’s very likely that it will end. If it doesn’t, we will have to go back to full-scale bombing,” he said.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghai downplayed reports suggesting a deal with the United States is imminent, calling them exaggerations.
He said the Iranian government has not yet issued a formal response to the latest US proposal, but continues to exchange diplomatic messages through intermediary Pakistan.
President Trump has repeatedly touted the prospect of a deal to end the U.S.-Israel war against Iran that began on February 28, but so far without success. The two countries remain at odds over a range of difficult issues, including Iran’s nuclear ambitions and control of the Strait of Hormuz, which handled a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies before the war.
A Pakistani official and another person briefed on the mediation told Reuters they were close to agreeing to a one-page memorandum of understanding that would formally end the conflict. That would begin talks to end the blockade on ships passing through the strait, lift U.S. sanctions on Iran and curb Iran’s nuclear program, the officials said.
It is unclear how the memorandum differs from the 14-point plan that Iran proposed last week.
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency, citing unnamed sources, said the U.S. proposal contained terms that it found unacceptable, but did not say which ones.
Rep. Ebrahim Rezaei, a spokesman for Iran’s parliamentary foreign policy and national security committee, said the document was “more like a U.S. wish list than reality.”
“Americans cannot gain in a war they are losing what they did not gain in face-to-face negotiations,” he wrote on social media.
U.S. State Department Spokesman Tommy Piggott told Al Jazeera that President Trump remains “clear-eyed” about the temporary short-term disruption caused by Iran’s de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, but that the U.S. government cannot “normalize countries being able to decide who is allowed to use international waterways.”
“I’m not trying to foretell or predict what the president might decide to do in the future, but the president has made it clear from the beginning that he wants a diplomatic solution…But make no mistake, President Trump means it when he says the Iranian regime will never be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he plans to speak with President Trump later Wednesday about ongoing negotiations with Iran, adding that both sides agreed that all enriched uranium must be removed from Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb.
Iran steadfastly refuses to give up enriched uranium, insisting it is not for producing nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, U.S. forces operating in the Gulf of Oman have disabled an Iranian-flagged oil tanker for allegedly failing to heed warnings, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced.
CENTCOM said in a statement that the ship, identified as the M/T Hasna, was seen passing through international waters at around 14:00 Japan time on Wednesday, en route to an Iranian port in the Gulf of Oman.
The US military issued “multiple warnings” to the tanker and informed the crew that the ship was violating the blockade, the command said. He reiterated that the US blockade on ships attempting to enter or exit Iranian ports is “fully in effect.”
President Trump announced late Tuesday that he would suspend Project Freedom, the U.S. military operation to guide stranded commercial ships into the Strait of Hormuz, for just one day, citing a chance to strike a deal to end the war.
President Trump said on social media that the surprise decision to suspend the mission was made at the request of “mediators Pakistan and other countries,” and that “significant progress has been made toward a full and final agreement” with Tehran.
