Over the weekend Trump repeated a pattern that has emerged throughout the past five months: announcing plans for "massive attacks" on Iran, only to cancel them at the last minute.

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"Would I rather make a deal? I'm not looking to kill people," ​Trump said aboard Air Force One on Sunday.

"Now what we're doing is talking to them, in the form of a ​negotiation. It begins tomorrow afternoon," he said, without identifying a venue or participants for such talks.

Iran's Foreign ⁠Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei rejected the claim, saying no negotiations with the United States were taking place and no meetings were scheduled. ​Iran had no plans to host foreign delegations or send negotiators abroad in the coming days, he said.

Baghaei added that all Iranian negotiators were ​currently in the country, apart from Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, who was on a religious pilgrimage in Iraq. The only talks under way, he said, were discussions with Oman over management of the Strait of Hormuz.


A senior Iranian source also told Reuters that no talks were planned and that Araqchi would be ​unavailable at least until the end of the week.