(Reuters) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
WASHINGTON\/JERUSALEM\/TEL AVIV, March 23 –\u00a0Iran<\/a>\u00a0denied 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A European official said that \u200bwhile 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 \u200ccould be held in Islamabad as soon as this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that the U.S. and Iran<\/a> had held “very good and productive” conversations about a “complete and total resolution of hostilities in the Middle East”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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<\/a> and oil prices sharply lower to below $100 a barrel<\/a>, a sudden reversal to a market swoon caused by his weekend threats and Iran’s vows to respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump later told reporters his special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who had been \u200bnegotiating with Iran before the war, had held discussions with a top Iranian official into the evening on Sunday and would continue on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We have had very, very strong talks. We’ll see where they lead. We have major \u200bpoints of agreement, I would say, almost all points of agreement,” he told reporters<\/a> before departing Florida for Memphis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Memphis, he said Washington had been negotiating with Iran “for a long time, \u2060and this time they mean business,” adding: “I think it could very well end up being a good deal for everybody.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \u200bthe most respected and the leader.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n