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By Brendan Cole
Senior Reporter
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President Donald Trump said he would postpone military strikes on Iran and then later touted productive negotiations with Tehran. However, while The Jerusalem Post reported that Iran's parliament speaker was leading negotiations with Washington, Iranian state-linked media denied that talks were taking place.
Amid the contradictory statements, an Iran expert told Newsweek Tuesday he was "skeptical" that a serious diplomatic path was being pursued.
Trump's Truth Social comments on Monday followed his threat two days earlier that Iran had 48 hours to fully open the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas, or face the "obliteration" of its energy infrastructure.
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Tehran in turn threatened to "irreversibly destroy" essential infrastructure across the Middle East, including vital water systems, if Trump made good on his threat, raising fears of further escalation in the war, which is now in its fourth week.
Amid diplomatic uncertainty and wild market swings, financial analyst Susannah Streeter told Newsweek Monday: "Both sides in this conflict are proving to be unreliable narrators, and that's still causing nervousness."
Trump Threatens, Iran Responds
Trump had said on Saturday that Tehran must unblock the waterway or the U.S. "will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST."
He did not specify further, but the Iranian military's operational command headquarters, Khatam al-Anbiya, said Tehran would respond by striking all energy, information technology and desalination infrastructure linked to the U.S. and Israel.
Iranian media shared a list of possible sites for attack, which included critical desalination plants in Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE and Saudi Arabia.
"This is in line with the Iranian concentration on taking control of escalation and responding one step above the adversary's threshold to restore deterrence, which of course can lead to further escalation," Hamidreza Azizi, Iran expert and research fellow at German think tank SWP Berlin, told Newsweek.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday he had told the U.S. defense department to postpone military strikes on Iran after "very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East."
However, Trump's post was contradicted by Iran's official Fars news agency which said the regime in Tehran was not engaged in any direct negotiations with the U.S., nor through intermediaries. As of Tuesday, there were no reports of the Strait of Hormuz opening fully, although some vessels from countries deemed friendly by Tehran were reportedly being allowed through.
Fars also cited an unnamed source as saying Trump had "retreated" from his threat, while Iran's official state television network IRIB said on Telegram that Trump had postponed his deadline "out of fear of Iran's response."
“There's totally contradictory signaling coming from each side," said Azizi. "I remain skeptical about a serious diplomatic track being in place, simply because the facts on the ground and developments on the ground are pointing to a different direction.“
“President Trump speaks of positive, constructive diplomatic exchanges, but at the same time, troop deployments toward the Middle East continue.”
Reuters reported that intermediary countries are involved in talks, such as Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan and negotiations are mooted for Islamabad at the end of the week. “Whether this can translate into something concrete, I think it's still difficult to tell,” Azizi added.
Trump told reporters later on Monday that one proposal could see the U.S. share control of the Strait of Hormuz with Iran, while suggesting that regime change had already happened. An unnamed source told The Jerusalem Post that Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf was leading the talks with the United States.
Trump said Sunday's conversations had achieved "major points of agreement" with "top" Iranian leadership, although he had not heard from the new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen in public since taking power following his father's death.
Indirect Talks, Markets React
Iran's parliament speaker, who Israeli media reported was an interlocutor in the talks with the U.S., said no negotiations had taken place. However, Reuters cited a European official as saying that while there had been no direct negotiations between Iran and the U.S., Egypt, Pakistan and Gulf states were acting as intermediaries.
A Pakistani official said that Trump held a call with Pakistan's army chief, Asim Munir, according to Reuters, which reported that direct talks on ending the war could be held in Islamabad this week involving U.S. Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Trump's claims and Tehran's denials were not necessarily contradictory, said David Silbey, a military history expert at Cornell University.
"Both can be true," he told Newsweek. "The Iranians said there were no direct talks, which is a hedge... There are almost certainly 'indirect' talks going on, with one of the Gulf States talking to the Iranians and Americans and thus serving as a middleman.
"Also remember that Trump likes to fudge things... in order to get the stock market up," added Silbey. "He posts something that turns out not to be true overnight, and juices the market for a day or so."
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S&P 500 Nasdaq and Dow Jones futures opened higher Monday in response to Trump's talks post, but Streeter said Iran's claim that the president had backed down was likely to add fresh uncertainty. Investors "have swung from deep pessimism to giddy optimism about the trajectory of the war," she said.
"Clinging to President Trump's words is fraught with risks, given how hopes have already risen and then been dashed over the last four weeks," added Streeter, who is Wealth Club's chief investment strategist.
"The president will still want to project a strongman image and is unlikely to want any resolution to depict him in a weaker position on the global stage."
Mark Shanahan, a U.S. politics expert at the University of Surrey, in England, told Newsweek that Trump was unlikely to have been involved in any direct negotiation with Iran, "but back channels do exist via Iranian officials talking to some European leaders' offices."
He said: "It's a convoluted route, but that's how diplomacy works. Trump will never admit he gets anything wrong—he'll deflect, deny and double down... He's walking back for now, without admitting he's got his walking shoes on."
Shanahan added: "While the immediate tension may decrease a little today, the danger very much remains."
Meanwhile, National Iranian American Council (NIAC) President Jamal Abdi said on Monday: "We are hopeful that there is real opportunity for diplomacy to end the war."
Abdi told Newsweek: "We hope the president isn’t negotiating with himself for social media and TV cameras to calm the markets while there is really no end to this war in sight."
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