Trump, however, said that “I don’t want to say a deadline, because if I say a deadline, you’ll say, ‘Oh, he didn’t meet the deadline.'”
The United States and Israel launched the war on Iran on February 28. A fragile ceasefire mediated by Pakistan was agreed in April, but both sides have traded fire in recent days.
“The whole Middle East is happy, and long beyond the Middle East,” said Trump, whose war has caused global oil prices to spike, with inflation hitting a three-year high in the United States.
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Netanyahu’s claims
An increasingly frustrated Trump has for weeks veered between proclaiming a deal and threatening Iran, accusing Tehran as recently as Wednesday of “playing us for suckers.”
On Thursday morning, Trump vowed “very hard” strikes on Iran that evening and promised to take the country’s key oil infrastructure in what would have been a major escalation.
“At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela,” he said on social media.
Kharg Island is at the heart of Iran’s oil export industry, a lynchpin of the country’s battered economy. It sits off Iran’s Gulf coast, hundreds of kilometres northwest of the narrow, strategic Strait of Hormuz.
But a few hours later, he backtracked, saying in another social media post that “final points have been… approved by all parties involved.”
“Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have… cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening,” Trump said.
Less than two hours after saying he had cancelled the strikes, Trump then announced the deal.
Later on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office claimed that Trump vowed any Iran-US deal would include commitments to remove Tehran’s enriched nuclear material, and welcomed the US president’s commitments on limiting Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes.
“Although Israel is not party to the memorandum of understanding, the prime minister expressed his appreciation for President Trump’s commitment that the final agreement at the conclusion of negotiations will include 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 in the region,” Netanyahu’s office claimed on X after the two spoke.
