US President Donald Trump said late Wednesday that talks with Iran are going “very well” and could yield results by next weekend.
“I hear the negotiations themselves are going very well actually,” Trump told reporters, adding of a possible deal: “It could happen … over the weekend.”
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What Araghchi says
Trump’s assessment differed sharply from that of Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, who said the lines of communication with the United States were still open but “no tangible progress” had been made in negotiations to end the war in the Middle East.
Trump also said he wants to separate the US-Iran talks from those on the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“I’d like to separate it, I’d like to have a separate thing, because it is, it’s separate,” Trump said.
“We actually talked to Hezbollah for the first time, ever,” the US president said of efforts to stop the fighting in Lebanon.
“They agreed yesterday that they will not fire, Israel will not fire, we will just see,” Trump said.
Overnight, the US said it shot down Iranian drones and carried out an attack on an Iranian ground control station, while Tehran’s forces fired drones and missiles at several Gulf neighbors.
Trump downplayed the shootout, saying, “It’s a different part of the world, you know. I would say in that part of the world, a ceasefire is when you shoot in a more moderate way.”
“There’s a reason for everything, and we hit them pretty hard the night before, and actually last night,” Trump said of the Iranians, adding, “When it was explained to me, I said, ‘OK.'”
A cease-fire has been in effect between the US and Iran since early April, while a cease-fire in Lebanon took effect in the middle of that month.
Despite this, the clashes between the different parties in the conflict have continued.
