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President Donald Trump said on May 20 that the United States is willing to wait a few days for the “right answer” from Iran, as talks are right “on the borderline.”
“It’s right on the borderline, if we don’t get the right answers, it goes very quickly,” he told reporters just after stepping off Air Force One. “We’re all ready to go.”
Trump added that “we have to get the right answers [from Iran], so it’d have to be complete 100% good answers, and if we do, we save a lot of time, energy and lives.”
The U.S. The president also said that it “could be a few days, but it could go very quickly.” He noted that the U.S. is dealing with the Islamic Republic with “people that are, I think, far more reasonable than the people that are really no longer with us… so hopefully those people will make a deal that’s going to be great for everyone.”
Earlier in the week, Trump announced that he called off a planned military attack on Iran after the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates urged him to hold off as “serious negotiations” were underway.
He said in a post on Truth Social on May 18 that, out of respect for the three Persian Gulf leaders, he had instructed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Daniel Caine and the U.S. military not to carry out the scheduled attack. He warned, however, that the order could be reversed quickly if talks fail.
Trump’s move didn’t apparently please Israel. On May 20, Axios reported a tense call between him and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The two leaders discussed an emerging proposal – reportedly drafted by Qatar and Pakistan with input from regional mediators Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt – that would see Washington and Tehran sign a “letter of intent” that would officially end the war and open 30 days of negotiations on issues including reopening the Strait of Hormuz and limiting Iran’s nuclear program, a U.S. source involved in the phone call told the news website.
Two Israeli sources said that the leaders disagreed on the path forward during the call, as Netanyahu was highly skeptical of the framework, believing the U.S. should continue applying military pressure on Iran to further weaken the regime by destroying its critical infrastructure.
The U.S. source says that Netanyahu’s “hair was on fire after the call,” though Israeli sources note that Netanyahu “is always concerned” about how talks with Iran will go, even during stages that previously failed.
The Trump administration is now trying to get stronger commitments from Iran regarding limiting their nuclear program and better guarantees from the U.S. to gradually unfreeze Iranian funds kept abroad, according to the report.
While ongoing efforts towards a settlement seems serious, it is important to note that similar reports of disagreements between the U.S. and Israel emerged right before the start of the war on Iran, and that the Trump administration has used talks to prepare military action more than once before.
The emerging proposal does not actually address any of the main issues between the U.S. and Iran, but rather delays them, which is why is highly-unlikely that it will mature into a deal.
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