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Donald Trump has announced that the U.S. will begin new negotiations with Iran, after he refrained from launching new joint airstrikes with Israel on Saturday on the condition that an agreement be reached quickly.
According to Trump, the talks will begin Monday afternoon. Aboard Air Force One, he told reporters that the call to refrain from carrying out attacks over the weekend came from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Iran itself.
The U.S. president spoke by phone with Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia: “I said to the crown prince, ‘What would you rather do? Would you rather we do this, or not?’” Trump said. “They said they would much rather see an agreement than an attack, because you don’t know where such attacks might lead.”
He expressed optimism about a deal regarding the Strait of Hormuz and later about the nuclear issue, but neither Tehran nor the mediating countries have confirmed the talks. An earlier ceasefire agreement in June did not lead to a major breakthrough in the conflict that has been putting pressure on the Middle East and the global economy for more than five months.
News of new negotiations led to a drop in oil prices at the opening of Asian stock markets: the price of Brent crude oil fell by more than 4% to about $83 per barrel.
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