President Donald Trump said Monday he is delaying a planned military strike on Iran after Gulf allies urged him to give negotiations more time, saying there is a “very good chance” of reaching a deal to end the war without renewed U.S. attacks.
“We were getting ready to do a very major attack [Tuesday], and I put it off for a little while — hopefully maybe forever,” Trump said, “because we’ve had very big discussions with Iran, and we’ll see what they amount to.”
“There seems to be a very good chance that they can work something out,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “If we can do that without bombing the hell out of them, I’d be very happy.”
The announcement marked the latest shift in Trump’s handling of the fragile ceasefire reached in mid-April. For weeks, the president has warned Iran that fighting could resume if it did not accept a deal, while repeatedly setting deadlines and then backing away from them.
Over the weekend, Trump warned that “the Clock is Ticking” and said Iran needed to move “FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them.”
Trump first disclosed the pause in a social media post Monday, saying he had ordered the U.S. military to be ready “to go forward with a full, large scale assault of Iran, on a moment’s notice” if an acceptable deal is not reached.
He later told reporters that Gulf allies, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, asked him to delay the strike by two to three days because they believe talks with Iran are close to producing an agreement.
Trump called the delay a “very positive development,” though he acknowledged past moments when diplomacy appeared close to succeeding before collapsing.
“But this is a little bit different,” Trump said.
This Associated Press contributed to this report.
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