President Donald Trump said Saturday that Iran made an offer to the US about 10 minutes after he canceled the trip his special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kusher were set to make to Pakistan in an effort to continue peace negotiations.
He told reporters before boarding Air Force One in Palm Beach, Florida, that Tehran ‘offered a lot, but not enough’.
‘They gave us a paper that should have been better,’ Trump said. ‘And interestingly, immediately when I canceled it, within ten minutes, we got a new paper that was much better.’
Iran has not yet acknowledged or confirmed what Trump has said and has often contradicted his statements on the status of diplomacy between itself and the United States.
The president’s remarks came after it was revealed that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi left Pakistan on Saturday without meeting the US delegation.
Iranian officials previously said it was not yet ready to hold a new round of face-to-face talks with American officials, citing Washington’s refusal to abandon ‘maximalist’ demands on key issues.
Tehran also said it will not hand over its enriched uranium to the US, rejecting claims made by Trump.
Iran has further asked asked how they can trust the US after talks last year and early this year over Tehran’s nuclear program ended with it being attacked by the US and Israel.
President Donald Trump said Saturday that Iran made an offer to the US. He did not elaborate much beyond that while speaking to reporters as he boarded Air Force One in Palm Beach, Florida
The offer allegedly came 10 minutes after Trump canceled the trip his special envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, were set to make to Pakistan for more peace talks
Trump followed up his remarks with a Truth Social post that said: ‘I just cancelled the trip of my representatives going is Islamabad, Pakistan, to meet with the Iranians.
‘Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work! Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their “leadership.” Nobody knows who is in charge, including them. Also, we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!’
Araghchi arrived in Islamabad on Friday and held a series of meetings with Pakistani Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday.
They discussed what Araghchi described as Iran’s red lines for negotiations, and said Tehran would engage with Pakistan’s mediation efforts ‘until a result is achieved.’
An open-ended ceasefire has paused most fighting in Iran, but the economic fallout grows with global shipments of oil, liquefied natural gas, fertilizer and other supplies disrupted by the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Islamabad had been in near-lockdown ahead of the expected talks.
Pakistan has been trying to get the US and Iran back to the negotiation table since Trump this week announced an indefinite extension of the ceasefire, honoring Islamabad’s request for more diplomatic outreach.
The White House on Friday said Trump was sending Witkoff and Kushner to Islamabad on Saturday to meet with Araghchi and ‘hear the Iranians out’.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, left, meets with Pakistani Chief of General Staff Asim Munir, right, on Saturday amid efforts to revive stalled peace talks between the US and Iran
Trump made his latest statement on the status of peace talks in front of reporters at Palm Beach International Airport. He is headed back to Washington, D.C.
But Iran’s foreign ministry said any talks would be indirect and Pakistani officials would convey messages.
An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei previously said that Araghchi would only be meeting with ‘Pakistani high-level officials’ and that ‘no meeting is planned’ with the US.
Vice President JD Vance, who led the US delegation in the first round of talks with Tehran that collapsed, was not expected to attend the second round of negotiations.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt noted on Friday that he had been placed on ‘standby’ to travel to Pakistan should peace talks become serious and said it was not a case of the VP being sidelined by Trump.
In a statement, Leavitt said Friday night: ‘Steve and Jared will be heading to Pakistan tomorrow to hear the Iranians out.
‘The president, the vice president, the secretary of state, will be waiting here in the United States for updates, and the vice president, I understand, is on standby and will be willing to dispatch to Pakistan if we feel it’s a necessary use of his time.’
The first round of talks in Pakistan, led on the US by Vance, lasted over 20 hours and were face-to-face, the highest-level direct talks between the longtime adversaries since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Araghchi and Trump’s envoys also held hours of indirect talks in Geneva on February 27 but walked away without a deal.
Israeli tanks and military vehicles driving along the road between destroyed houses in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel on Saturday
The next day, Israel and the US started the war.
The latest effort to broker a deal comes as an indefinite ceasefire has paused most fighting, but economic fallout is still mounting with global energy shipments disrupted by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Pakistan has been trying to get US and Iranian officials back to the table after Trump this week announced an indefinite extension of the ceasefire with Iran, honoring Islamabad’s request for more time for diplomatic outreach.
Trump said on Friday that Iran was ‘making an offer and we’ll have to see‘, but did not state what the offer was.
Trump has also been adamant that any deal has to include Iran giving up its enriched uranium and the free traffic of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran attacked three ships this week, while the US maintains a blockade on Iranian ports. Trump has ordered the military to ‘shoot and kill’ small boats that could be placing mines.
Since the war began, authorities say at least 3,375 people have been killed in Iran and more than 2,490 people in Lebanon, where new fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah broke out two days after the Iran war started.
Additionally, 23 people have been killed in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Fifteen Israeli soldiers in Lebanon, 13 US service members in the region and six members of the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon have been killed.
Smoke rises in Lebanon after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, in northern Israel on Saturday
Trump announced Thursday that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to extend a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah by three weeks.
Hezbollah has not participated in the Washington-brokered diplomacy.