President Donald Trump has shifted course on the war against Iran. He announced that negotiations will begin in the coming hours. The decision sent oil prices tumbling in Asian trading, offering immediate relief to energy markets rattled by months of conflict.
Donald Trump sets a date for Iran war talk as oil prices drop
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Sunday, Donald Trump confirmed that diplomatic talks with Iran would start the following afternoon. “We’re talking to them in the form of a negotiation,” he said. He offered no venue or list of attendees.
Energy traders reacted to the diplomatic opening. Brent Crude fell 4.5% to $83.98 per barrel in Monday morning trading across Asia. US-traded oil dropped 4.6% to $80.74 per barrel. Prices have swung wildly since the war started on February 28. Market watchers have tracked every disruption near the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that carries roughly 20% of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas.
After all, the president revealed he had scrapped war plans for what he called “massive” strikes against Iran. He suggested Tehran understood the scale of the threatened assault. “They knew the extent of the attack because they saw it forming,” Trump told journalists.
His earlier Truth Social post claimed both Iran and Middle Eastern allies had asked him to “hold off” on any military operation. Trump wrote that the “perimeters” of a deal had already been settled. Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency rejected this version of events, calling the president’s claims “nothing but a new lie.”
However, on Air Force One, Trump credited several regional partners with helping to avert an immediate escalation. He named Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, along with leaders in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, as having pressed him to stand down over the weekend.
The President declined to set a deadline for reaching a final agreement with Tehran. “We’ll just see how it is. We’re ready to go anytime we want… I’m not looking to kill people,” he said.
(Source: BBC)
Originally reported by Devanshi Basu on Mandatory.
