Iran denies talks with US after Trump postpones strikes on power grid

(Reuters)

WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM/TEL AVIV, March 23 – Iran denied on Monday that it had engaged in negotiations with the United States, after President Donald Trump postponed a threat to bomb Iran’s power grid because of what he described as productive talks with unidentified Iranian officials.

A European official said that ​while there had been no direct negotiations between the two nations, Egypt, Pakistan and Gulf states were relaying messages. A Pakistani official and a second source told Reuters that direct talks on ending the war ‌could be held in Islamabad as soon as this week.

Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that the U.S. and Iran had held “very good and productive” conversations about a “complete and total resolution of hostilities in the Middle East”.

As a result, he said, he was postponing for five days a plan to hit Iran’s energy grid. His announcement sent share prices higher and oil prices sharply lower to below $100 a barrel, a sudden reversal to a market swoon caused by his weekend threats and Iran’s vows to respond.

Trump later told reporters his special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who had been ​negotiating with Iran before the war, had held discussions with a top Iranian official into the evening on Sunday and would continue on Monday.

“We have had very, very strong talks. We’ll see where they lead. We have major ​points of agreement, I would say, almost all points of agreement,” he told reporters before departing Florida for Memphis.

In Memphis, he said Washington had been negotiating with Iran “for a long time, ⁠and this time they mean business,” adding: “I think it could very well end up being a good deal for everybody.”

He did not identify the Iranian official in touch with Witkoff and Kushner, but said: “We’re dealing with the man who I believe is ​the most respected and the leader.”

An Israeli official and two other sources familiar with the matter said the interlocutor on the Iranian side was Iran’s powerful parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf.