WASHINGTON, September 22 — President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday, September 16, that the United States is “hopefully toward the end” of its war with Iran, and said he had spoken with Iranian officials “directly” when asked whether he had recently heard from the Iranian side.
Trump added that Iran “wants to make a deal, quickly and badly.” The comments, reported by Al Jazeera and Reuters, came two days after the president said on Monday, September 14, that he was open to talks and would decide whether Washington would engage Tehran. No confirmation of direct negotiations has come from Tehran.
On Tuesday, September 15, Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, accused Trump of sending “mixed signals” and said there would be “no talks until Iran’s conditions are met.” Tehran has demanded that the United States honor the terms of a deal signed in June 2026. That demand is the hinge on which the current diplomacy turns, and it is the reason the two capitals are describing the same week in opposite terms. Former Iranian diplomat Abbas Khameyar dismissed Trump’s claim outright.
He told Al Jazeera he did not believe there had been “any additional effort beyond what was already under way in recent weeks,” describing a US narrative of Iranian pleas as one “nobody believes.” Iran’s diplomacy, he said, remains focused on enforcing the existing Memorandum of Understanding rather than opening new negotiations.
A Call Through Pakistan
On Thursday, September 17, Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held a telephone call with Pakistani army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, who has led mediation efforts between Washington and Tehran. The call is the kind of channel that has carried US-Iran communication before. Past negotiations have repeatedly depended on intermediaries including Qatar, Pakistan and Oman — which is why Trump’s claim of direct contact stands out against the record.
The episode leaves open whether diplomacy is genuinely resuming or whether the two sides remain far apart. Washington describes an opening.
Tehran conditions any talks on the June 2026 deal being honored. Both positions were on the table within the same seventy-two hours. What to watch next is whether the Pakistani channel produces anything beyond a readout, and whether Tehran moves from conditions to a date.
