Between threat and talk, Trump finds an off-ramp with Iran

President Donald Trump seized on initial contacts between Iranian and US officials to back away Monday from his threat to strike power plants in Iran, declaring that the countries had begun “productive conversations” for the first time since the war began more than three weeks ago.

Iranian officials publicly denied that any negotiations about terms to end the war were underway, and US officials said the contacts were in a very early stage and not substantive.

But Trump used the opening of even an early dialogue as an off-ramp from
the threat he issued Saturday to attack Iran’s power plants in retribution for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran had vowed not to capitulate, and the 48-hour deadline Trump had set would have expired Monday.

Trump said he would now extend his deadline to Friday to give the talks time to proceed, setting off a flurry of diplomacy by a number of nations seeking to nurture the talks. It remained unclear, though, how seriously the White House was taking the potential for a breakthrough in a conflict that has seen both sides escalate for weeks.

“We’re doing a five-day period,” Trump told reporters Monday about his pause on hitting Iranian power plants, targets that are forbidden under most circumstances under the Geneva Conventions. “We’ll
see how that goes, and if it goes well, we’re going to end up with settling this. Otherwise, we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out.”

Even as Trump retreated from one military option, US and Israeli officials said they were continuing to carry out other strikes against Iran and more US military assets were headed to the region. Officials said Trump was still weighing more aggressive operations, including one to seize Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export hub, and another to send ground forces into Iran to secure highly enriched uranium.

Trump on Monday provided few details of the conversations with Iran beyond saying Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, and Steve Witkoff, his special envoy, were leading the negotiations. He said they were communicating directly with one of Iran’s leaders, without naming the person. US and Iranian officials familiar with the conversations, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks, said Witkoff has had direct communication with Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, in recent days.

The president said the United States was still demanding an end to Iranian nuclear enrichment and elimination of all of the country’s uranium stockpiles that could be used to one day make a bomb, terms that Iran had previously rejected. It was the breakdown of diplomatic negotiations between Kushner, Witkoff and Araghchi that led to the United States and Israel launching strikes against Iran at the end of February.

Iranian officials denied Monday that they were negotiating with the United States, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, wrote on social media that Trump’s comments were an attempt to “escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped.”

In interviews, four Iranian officials said that the messages passed in the past few days through intermediaries and in direct conversations with the Americans were essentially probes on how to de-escalate the conflict, with the goal of averting a spiralling escalation, including attacks on crucial energy infrastructure.

The officials said that Araghchi told Witkoff that Iran was not interested in a temporary ceasefire and wanted a sustainable peace deal, with guarantees that the United States and Israel would not attack it again. The officials said the Iranians also sought specific economic sanctions relief from Washington, a topic that, in negotiations before the war, US officials said would happen only after Iran delivered
on its nuclear and other commitments in any agreement.

But Trump’s characterisation of these as “productive conversations” seemed to overstate the current state of the talks.

Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at
the International Crisis Group, said the Iranians would not engage in a high-level meeting before knowing that the United States was stepping away from its “maximalist” demands.

“Not attacking energy infrastructure is a low bar,” he said. “The terms of a ceasefire, or an agreement that would resolve the longer-term problems including the fate of the stockpile or reopening of the strait — none of those things are anywhere close to the finish line right now.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he spoke with Trump on Monday and that Trump believed it was possible to “leverage” their military achievements against Iran to “realise the objectives of the war in an agreement.”

But Netanyahu, whose strategy has sometimes been at odds with Trump’s in recent weeks, made it clear he had no intention of letting up. “We are smashing the missile programme and the nuclear programme, and we continue to deal severe blows to Hezbollah.” He revealed that Israel recently “eliminated two more nuclear scientists” in Iran.

Arab countries in the Persian Gulf decided they did not want to act as mediators as long as Iran continued to attack their countries, but several other countries including Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt have offered assistance, though it remains unclear if there are any mediating partners involved.

Turkey and Pakistan have floated ideas for in-person meetings between US and Iranian officials.

One proposal calls for a meeting between Araghchi, Witkoff and Kushner while another suggests Vice President JD Vance meets with Ghalibaf. Officials said none of the meetings have been scheduled.

“These are sensitive diplomatic discussions and the US will not negotiate through the press,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement. “This is a fluid situation, and speculation about meetings should not be deemed as final until they are formally announced by the White House.”

For Trump, the prospect of negotiations allows him to buy time to try to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and to extract himself from a box of his own construction. On Saturday night, Trump said if Iran did not open the strait within 48 hours, the United States would “obliterate” Iran’s power plants.

After he issued his threat, it became clear that if he attacked Iran’s electrical infrastructure, the retaliation would take place against Gulf allies who
are already trying to keep the war from spreading. But if he backed away from his threat, some officials around him feared
he would be conveying weakness to
the Iranians.

On Monday, Iranian officials said Trump’s announcement was evidence of the United States giving in. “Trump, out of fear of Iran’s response, backed down from his 48-hour ultimatum,” the Iranian state broadcaster, IRIB, said.

Trump is facing increasing domestic and economic pressure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The war’s global fallout has seen the price of oil and gas shoot up as much as 40% since late February, a crisis that is now worse than the oil shocks in 1973 and 1979 combined, according to the head of the International Energy Agency.

Trump’s statement about talks with Iran immediately reduced energy prices somewhat, but it was unclear how long that could last without tangible progress toward ending the war. The president has repeatedly given optimistic assessments that temporarily eased market jitters, only for prices to rise again.

Trump on Monday promised the Strait of Hormuz would be open “very soon” and would be “jointly controlled.”

“Maybe me? Maybe me,” he said when asked who would control the key waterway. “Me and the ayatollah. Whoever the ayatollah is.”

For now, the “productive conversations”appear less a breakthrough than a mutual testing of limits. Washington seeks to regain leverage without triggering wider regional blowback, while Tehran is signalling openness only to a durable arrangement that guarantees security and economic reprieve. The risk is that misreading these tentative exchanges as progress could harden positions rather than soften them. With energy markets volatile and allies wary, the coming days will test whether diplomacy can outpace escalation.