WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Sunday that he expects talks with Iran to resume in the coming week, despite his rejection of a truce proposal put forward by Tehran.
Iranian officials brought with them to the UN General Assembly in New York a plan for a seven-day truce followed by the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz shipping channel.
Trump dismissed the plan and has mused on resuming full-scale air strikes on Iranian targets, but he told the news platform Axios that he expects negotiations to resume.
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“They want to make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make,” Trump told Axios. “It is what we would have maybe agreed to a year ago.”
“They overplayed their hand,” Trump said, in the interview published Sunday.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, Axios reported that indirect talks between Washington and Tehran could take place as early as Monday.
On Sunday, Iran was still standing by its conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, leaving the Gulf front of the Middle East war locked in a stalemate, while fighting rages in Yemen.
Hormuz is a key chokepoint for the world’s energy supplies and is now central to the conflict between Washington and Tehran, which was started nearly seven months ago when the US and Israel launched a wave of strikes against Iran.
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