“No negotiations have been held with the US.” Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, posted that on X on Monday, hours after President Donald Trump said “very good and productive conversations” had taken place toward ending the war.
Ghalibaf went further. “Fake news is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped,” he wrote. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei also denied any talks, though he said Iran had received messages from “some friendly countries” about the US request to negotiate an end to the war.
What Trump announced
On Saturday Trump had threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants unless the Strait of Hormuz was opened to all vessels within 48 hours. Monday morning, in an all-caps Truth Social post, he said he had told the Defense Department to postpone strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for five days, subject to “the success of the ongoing meetings and discussions”.
He told reporters the talks happened on Sunday, with “a top person” in Iran he did not name. Special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, he said, spoke with a top Iranian official into the evening and would continue on Monday. “We have major points of agreement, I would say, almost all points of agreement,” he said. “They want very much to make a deal. We’d like to make a deal, too.”
An Israeli official and two other sources told Reuters the Iranian side of the contact was Ghalibaf himself.
Markets moved fast. Share prices jumped and oil dropped, with Brent crude at $US99.94 a barrel, down 10.92% on the day.
Messages through third parties
A European official said there had been no direct negotiations, but that Egypt, Pakistan and Gulf states were passing messages. A Pakistani official and a second source told Reuters direct talks could be held in Islamabad as soon as this week, with Vice President JD Vance, Witkoff and Kushner expected to meet Iranian officials.
Hassan Ahmadian, a professor at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera that Trump may have been looking for a way out of his own deadline. “He wanted to climb down, and this mediation effort, I think, was his way to [do it],” he said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards dismissed Trump’s words as “psychological operations” that were “worn out”, and said fresh attacks on US targets were under way. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after speaking with Trump that Israel would keep attacking in Iran and Lebanon. “We will safeguard our vital interests in any agreement,” he said.
The war, launched by the US and Israel on February 28, had by then killed more than 2000 people. Iran has effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies pass, and says it will not reopen it until the US and Israel call off their attacks.
Sources
- Iran denies any talks with US after Trump claims ‘productive’ discussions
- Iran denies talks with US after Trump halts strikes
