President Donald Trump claimed Monday that he held talks with a "respected" Iranian leader, adding that Tehran wants to make a deal as both sides have "major points of agreement."
Trump said the talks were being conducted with a "top person" but not the country's supreme leader.
"We've wiped out the leadership phase one, phase two, and largely phase three. But we're dealing with the man who I believe is the most respected and the leader," Trump told reporters. "We want no enrichment, but we also want the enriched uranium."
The U.S. president said the conversations that took place Sunday would continue and that if the negotiations continued productively, there would be a deal very soon.
Trump, however, did not name any official or officials representing Tehran. He added that the U.S. has not talked to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.
If talks fail, he told reporters, "we'll just keep bombing our little hearts out."
Trump added that his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner held the talks.
Earlier, Trump said he had given orders to postpone any military strikes against Iranian power plants for five days, hours ahead of a deadline that threatened further escalation in the conflict now in its fourth week.
A reporter for the U.S. news outlet Axios said Türkiye, Egypt and Pakistan had met Witkoff and, separately, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
Araghchi's ministry said there were "initiatives" to reduce tensions, the Mehr news agency reported, adding that Tehran wanted Washington, as the party that began the war, to be a direct participant.
