Donald Trump says US and Tehran having 'good talks'
Published On 28 Jul, 2026
Despite Trump’s optimism, Tehran appeared to quickly test the pause in the U.S. military campaign, with Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq reporting drone attacks on Monday.
Washington abruptly suspended a two-week campaign of air strikes on Iran on Saturday in Donald Trump’s latest strategic U-turn in the five-month-old conflict.
“We’re having good talks,” he said. “I think there’s a good chance that something could happen, and if it does, good, if it doesn’t, we go back to doing what we were doing two days ago.”
At a campaign rally in Michigan later on Monday, Donald Trump said of Iran: “You can’t bribe them. You’ve got to beat them, and we’ll beat the hell out of them. But we’ll see how it turns out. Right now, there are very friendly negotiations going on.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said on Monday that messages were still being passed between the sides through mediators and Iran had not forsaken diplomacy, but reports that it requested negotiations were “fabricated.”
“This is not in our DNA,” he said.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Sunday that Iran would halt its own attacks as long as Trump’s self-imposed ceasefire continued.
Iran’s central military command later on Monday accused the U.S. of threatening vessels and oil tankers in its territorial waters and of “attempting to implement an illegal maritime blockade”, which it said “constitutes an escalation of the conflict in the region.”
