Donald Trump
“I think we’re very close to an agreement with Iran,” Trump told reporters outside the White House on April 16.
The U.S. president said he was unsure whether the two-week cease-fire, which expires April 22, needed to be continued and that “if there is no agreement … fighting will resume.” He did not specify a timeframe.
Trump also repeated his statement about the cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon, which begins April 16, and said it was about Hezbollah.
“Hezbollah is both a militant group and a political party that controls much of southern Lebanon. The United States considers it a terrorist organization, while the European Union has blacklisted only its armed wing.
Trump said he hopes to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun at the White House soon.
The backstory
U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a naval blockade of Iran after U.S.-Iranian peace talks in Islamabad on April 11-12 failed to produce an agreement to end the war, which began with U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran on Feb. 28.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters on April 16 that Iran and the United States had made limited progress toward a possible Pakistan-brokered agreement, but serious differences remained.
He added that “the fate of Iran’s highly enriched uranium and the duration of Iran’s nuclear restrictions are among the most contentious issues for which no solution has yet been found.”
Pakistan’s foreign ministry said a date for the second round of talks has not yet been set.
On April 14, President Trump speculated that a new round of talks with Iran could resume in a day or two.
