Iran denied on Monday that it had engaged in negotiations with the United States, after President Donald Trump postponed a threat to bomb Iran’s power grid following what he described as productive talks with unidentified Iranian officials.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that the U.S. and Iran had held “very good and productive” conversations about a “complete and total resolution of hostilities in the Middle East”.
As a result, he said, he was postponing for five days a plan to hit Iran’s energy grid.
Trump’s announcement sent share prices higher and oil prices sharply lower to below $100 a barrel, a sudden reversal to a market swoon caused by his weekend threats and Iran’s vows to respond.
Trump later told reporters his special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who had been negotiating with Iran before the war, had held discussions with a top Iranian official into the evening on Sunday and would continue on Monday, March 23, 2026.
“We have had very, very strong talks. We’ll see where they lead. We have major points of agreement, I would say, almost all points of agreement,” he told reporters before departing Florida for Memphis.
An Israeli official and two other sources familiar with the matter said the interlocutor on the Iranian side was Iran’s powerful parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf.
Oil prices slip after Trump halts Iran energy strikes
Qalibaf said on X that there had been no such talks with the United States, and ridiculed the suggestion as an attempt to rig financial markets.
He wrote: “Iranian people demand complete and remorseful punishment of the aggressors. All Irainan officials stand firmly behind their supreme leader and people until this goal is achieved.
“No negotiations have been held with the US, and fake news is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped.”
A European official said that while there had been no direct negotiations between the two nations, Egypt, Pakistan, and Gulf states were relaying messages.
A Pakistani official and a second source told Reuters that direct talks on ending the war could be held in Islamabad as soon as this week.
More than 2,000 people have been killed in the war the U.S. and Israel launched on February 28, 2026.
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