US President Donald Trump has accused Iran of “unbelievably duplicitous” behaviour on his social media platform Truth Social, after Iran denied the existence of direct peace talks with the US.
In a post, the president wrote: “Iranian Leadership is unbelievably duplicitous! They ask for a meeting, some would say ‘beg’, talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they’re not having any discussions, that nothing is being talked about, and they’re only dealing with ‘Oman’.
“They then go on to give their usual blather in saying the Strait of Hormuz will be operated powerfully by them, when it is already completely controlled by the United States Navy and our ‘Blockade’ or, as some say, ‘The United States Wall of Steel!’
“Nothing gets through to Iran, unless we want it to, and nothing will get through, unless a Deal, or Total Surrender, is accomplished.
“Whether Iran wants to admit it or not, we are, in fact, talking of a solution to a problem that they have caused, for decades. It is very simple, IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!”
Trump’s latest comments come after he previously said negotiations with Iran will start on Monday, having called off new strikes on the country over the weekend.
Trump had said a plan was in place for US forces to carry out “the biggest attack since World War II” on Sunday.
But in a post on Truth Social, Trump said he had been asked to “hold off” on attacks by Iran and other key Gulf leaders, as the “perimeters of a deal have been agreed to”.
Speaking on Air Force One on Sunday, Trump told reporters: “They said we’d like to make a deal.
“Now, you know, I don’t know what they say because a lot of times they’ll say that to me and then they’ll go out and say, we don’t know what he’s talking about.
“Obviously they don’t want to be attacked. And they knew, they knew the extent of the attack because they saw it for me.”
He continued: “Now what we’re doing is we’re talking to them in the form of a negotiation. It begins tomorrow afternoon.”
On Sunday, Trump reiterated that the emerging deal would include a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway where about a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas flowed before the start of the war, and would resolve US concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme.
The US, in exchange, will end its naval blockade on Iran and allow Tehran to export its oil as stated in the tentative ceasefire deal, a regional official involved in the mediation efforts said.
Trump said that Israel is joining his commitment to end the war by implementing the ceasefire deal reached in June. Israel did not publicly comment on the announcement.
Iran has repeatedly attacked vessels attempting to transit through the Strait of Hormuz without its authorisation as part of its conflict with the US.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said on Sunday that the Strait of Hormuz “will in no way return to the status it was before February 28th,” the day the war started.
On a call with Iranian state TV, he added that Iran is discussing shipping through the strait with Oman, on the other side of Hormuz, but that there’s no current talk about reopening the crucial waterway.
Separately, Iran’s foreign ministry said it’s focused on negotiations with Oman, not the US, prompting Trump’s criticisms of the country’s leadership.
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Trump has announced halts to strikes on Iran on several occasions since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28 earlier this year.
Iran’s defence minister said on X that the country was “neither surprised nor passive” following Trump’s announcement and said the Islamic Republic remains alert in the face of concrete threats from the US.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman raised concerns about the US potentially escalating the conflict when he spoke with Trump by phone on Saturday.
The call was “candid and constructive,” according to a person briefed on the call who was not authorised to comment publicly and requested anonymity.
The crown prince conveyed that an escalation in fighting could have a severe impact on the global economy if Tehran responded to a new US bombardment by targeting some of the United States’ Gulf allies.
Trump suggested that his conversation with the Saudi crown prince weighed heavily in his decision to halt his plans to carry out strikes on Iran.
“It would have been disastrous for them. And they didn’t want us to do it,” Trump said. “And frankly, Saudi Arabia didn’t want it either. They thought that a deal is imminent.”
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