Iran Pumps the Brakes on Trump’s Claim About a Deal: ‘We Have Not Yet Reached’ an Agreement

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

The Iranian government said that despite President Donald Trump’s claims about a deal to end the war, one has not been reached.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, the president declared, “We just made a great settlement of the war with Iran.”

A reporter asked Trump if a deal might be signed this weekend, and he responded, “It’ll be soon. Maybe this weekend.” Trump went on to say that Iran’s supreme leader had approved the agreement.

However, Reuters reported afterward that Esmaeil ​Baghaei, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said no such agreement exists and that talk about a time and place of a signing is speculative. Drop Site News posted a video of Baghaei’s remarks with an English translation.

“And as I speak to you now, we have not yet reached a final conclusion on this matter,” he said. “The issue–well, it is a very important matter, and it is currently under review by the relevant decision-making institutions. ”

Throughout the conflict, Trump has insisted that a deal to end the war is imminent, sometimes saying in a matter of a couple of weeks or even days. Last week, Iranian negotiators suspended talks, and the country claimed the U.S. is not interested in a viable deal.

On Wednesday, the U.S. bombed Iran for the second straight day in response to this week’s downing of a U.S. Apache helicopter, whose crew was rescued in the Strait of Hormuz. The two countries are in a so-called ceasefire, but have periodically exchanged fire. The war began in February with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, which has closed the strait in response, sending oil and gas prices surging.

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