Trump's hopes for an Iran peace deal come with caveats
Later on Wednesday morning, Trump expressed optimism in a brief telephone call with PBS about an Iran deal, while acknowledging it had previously proven elusive."I felt that way before with them," he said. "So we'll see what happens."Trump also told PBS it was "unlikely" he would send US envoys for a second round of Iran peace talks in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.Axios and Reuters had reported that Washington and Tehran were inching closer to a one-page, 14-point memorandum to end the war.The plan would reportedly aim to bring hostilities to a close, which would then be followed by discussions to unblock the Strait of Hormuz, lift sanctions and curb Iranian's nuclear ambitions.But Axios also reported scepticism among some US officials about a deal and who would even approve such an agreement among the factions in Iran's leadership.Iranian parliamentarian Ebrahim Rezaei, a spokesperson for Iran's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, wrote on X that the 14 points reported by Axios amounted to a US "wish list".He added that Iran "has its finger on the trigger and is ready" if the Americans did not "grant the necessary concessions".In the US, foreign policy experts injected a note of caution, too."Clearly, the administration thinks a deal is possible, given the way they publicly rolled out Project Freedom only to suddenly pause it hours later," Grant Rumley, a former Middle East policy adviser to both the Biden and Trump administrations, told the BBC."But we have been here before, and we've seen negotiations collapse at the last minute for a variety of reasons," added Rumley, now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.Trump has repeatedly suggested a deal was close since a ceasefire was announced on 7 April.On 17 April, he told CBS that Iran had "agreed to everything" and would allow the US to remove its enriched uranium – a claim officials in Tehran rejected outright.In the White House on Wednesday, Trump again maintained: "They want to make a deal, they want to negotiate.""And we'll see whether or not they are agreeing," he added.
