President Donald Trump announced he had cancelled planned strikes on Iran and declared an agreement to end the war was near – only for Tehran to dismiss the claim as “speculative”.
“We just made a great settlement of the war with Iran,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, hours after threatening to hit the country “very hard”. In a post on Truth Social he said discussions had been “brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved”.
“Trump claims Iran deal close after cancelling strikes; Iran says nothing finalised.”
But Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told state TV that reports of an agreement were “speculative” and “nothing has been finalised”. He said the majority of the text for a memorandum had been “finalised” but the US had made “excessive demands” and added “new requests”, insisting the country would not “depart from its red lines”.
The US and Israel launched wide-ranging strikes on Iran on 28 February, opening a conflict that has killed around 5,000 people, mostly in Iran and Lebanon, and 13–15 US soldiers. Iran responded by attacking Israel and US-allied Gulf states and effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping route.
Trump said the strait would open “as soon as we have it signed”. The president said he had spoken to leaders in the region, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who expressed appreciation for Trump’s commitment to a final agreement including “the removal of enriched material, the dismantling of enrichment infrastructure, limits on missile production, and the cessation of Iran’s support for its terrorist proxies”. Netanyahu’s office confirmed Israel “is not a party to the memorandum of understanding”.
Trump said the documents were in “pretty final shape” and a signing could take place “maybe in Europe”. Asked if Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei had agreed, Trump replied: “I understand the answer is yes.” Khamenei was severely wounded in the opening bombardment and has been in hiding. “They want to make the deal a lot more than I do,” Trump added.
The price of Brent crude plunged about 4.4% to roughly $89 a barrel (£66) after the announcement. Mediators led by Pakistan have been trying for weeks to bridge the two sides’ demands, with the US seeking Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile and Iran demanding sanctions relief and frozen assets.
Complicating the talks, Iran’s leaders are demanding that any deal also cover Lebanon, where Israeli air strikes killed at least 17 people on Wednesday, including nine in the town of Tayr Debba. The UN human rights chief Volker Türk announced he was sending a team of investigators to Lebanon to examine possible human rights violations by all sides.