Washington/Islamabad – US President Donald Trump has said Iran has “an interest in reaching an agreement” as negotiations over the country’s nuclear programme and the ongoing conflict continue without resolution.
In a telephone interview with French broadcaster BFMTV on Saturday, Trump said he was uncertain whether a deal would soon be reached.
“I have no idea. If they don’t, they’re going to have a very bad time. They have an interest in reaching an agreement,” the American president told the BFMTV correspondent in the US.
According to several media reports, Trump is expected to decide in the coming hours whether or not to resume strikes against the Iranian regime, as talks aimed at ending the conflict and addressing Iran’s nuclear program have so far failed to produce results.
Regional tensions have remained high since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Feb. 28, prompting retaliatory attacks by Tehran against Israel and US allies in Gulf countries, along with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
A ceasefire took effect on April 8 through Pakistani mediation, but talks in Islamabad failed to produce a lasting agreement. Trump later extended the truce indefinitely while maintaining a blockade on vessels traveling to or from Iranian ports through the strategic waterway.
Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni held talks with his Pakistani counterpart Mohsin Naqvi in Tehran on Saturday on boosting border trade, strengthening security cooperation, and expanding bilateral ties, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency. Pakistani government sources confirmed Naqvi’s arrival in the Iranian capital to Anadolu earlier on Saturday, after IRNA reported that the minister had arrived in Tehran “a few hours ago” as part of an unannounced visit. Momeni discussed a wide range of issues with the Pakistani minister, particularly border trade and ways to boost it, IRNA said.
He thanked the government and people of Pakistan for their “friendly and brotherly” stance toward Iran, adding that ties between the neighboring countries are rooted in historical relations.
The Iranian minister said both sides are determined to expand economic and trade relations and stressed the need to establish facilities on both sides of the border to strengthen “unity, solidarity, and brotherhood.”
He also expressed hope that the countries’ long shared border would become “more secure and beneficial” through joint efforts.
For his part, Naqvi thanked Momeni for hosting him and said the two countries would reach “tangible solutions” on issues related to bilateral relations, border security, and trade, according to IRNA.
Earlier, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s Interior Ministry told Anadolu that the visit had already been scheduled and said the ministry would issue a statement regarding Naqvi’s meetings.
The development came as Pakistan has been mediating between Washington and Tehran to bring a lasting end to the conflict that started with US and Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, and was followed by Iranian retaliation against Israel and other regional countries hosting US assets.
A ceasefire took effect on April 8 through Pakistani mediation, but talks in Islamabad failed to produce a lasting agreement.
Israel and the United States are carrying out their most intense preparations yet to renew attacks on Iran, possibly as soon as next week, two Middle Eastern officials told The New York Times on Friday.
According to US officials cited by the newspaper, options for renewed operations in Iran include launching a more intense bombing campaign against military and infrastructure sites; conquering Iran’s key oil export hub of Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf; and putting commandos on the mainland to extract nuclear material buried under the rubble.
Extracting the highly enriched uranium would risk several casualties and require thousands of supporting forces to create a perimeter around an area of operation and likely engage with Iranian ground troops, the Times cited military officials as saying.
A senior Israeli official was also quoted by Channel 12 as saying Israel was preparing for imminent war and waiting for US President Donald Trump to decide how to proceed in negotiations with Iran to end the conflict.
“The Americans understand that negotiations with Iran are going nowhere,” the unnamed official claimed.
“We’re preparing for days to weeks of fighting and waiting for Trump’s final decision. We’ll know more in 24 hours,” the official said. It was unclear why the official cited a 24 hour window.
Pakistani-mediated negotiations, supported by China, have failed to secure a settlement between the US and Iran, with the talks faltering over Iran’s nuclear program and the post-war control of the Strait of Hormuz.
On Friday, departing after a two-day visit to China, Trump said he would accept a 20-year suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment program if Tehran gave a “real” guarantee, in an apparent shift from his earlier demand that Iran pledge to permanently halt enrichment.
While Iran, whose leaders are sworn to Israel’s destruction, denies seeking nuclear arms, it has amassed uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels with no peaceful application.
Iran’s stockpile of about 440 kilograms (970 pounds) of highly enriched uranium — enough for about ten nuclear warheads — is thought to have been buried following US strikes on key Iranian nuclear facilities during the 12-day Israel-Iran war in June last year.
Iraq oil exports via Hormuz plummet; Iran said suspected of US gas station hack
Israel and the US launched the war on Iran on February 28 in a bid to destabilize the regime and destroy its ballistic missile and nuclear programs.
Iran responded with missile and drone strikes across the region and by imposing a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, choking off about a fifth of the world’s oil shipments.
The war entered a truce on April 8, during which the US imposed its own blockade on Iran-linked shipping and briefly sought to guide trapped vessels through the waterway.
Supply chain disruptions have triggered a sharp rise in energy prices worldwide.
Iraq’s new oil minister, Basim Mohammed, said at a press conference on Saturday that his country exported 10 million barrels via the strait in April, down from about 93 million barrels monthly before the Iran war.
The exports previously accounted for some 90 percent of the Iraqi government’s budget revenues.
Meanwhile, US officials suspect Iran is behind a hack of systems that monitor the levels of available fuel in storage tanks that supply gas stations in some states, CNN reported Friday, citing sources briefed on the investigation.
The report said the hackers took advantage of online systems that weren’t protected by passwords. No physical damage was done to the systems, and the hackers changed the display system showing the fuel level, rather than the actual amount of fuel itself, according to the report.
Tehran was suspected because it had a history of trying to hack the systems, but it’s possible the culprits will never be identified, the sources said.
It was unclear why the systems did not have more robust protections if they had been previously targeted. CNN said there was no comment from the FBI or US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
