Next round of US-Iran talks 'maybe, probably over the weekend', very close to deal: Trump
US President Donald Trump speaks to the media before boarding Air Force One on his way to Virginia, at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, US, April 10, 2026. PHOTO: REUTERS
United States President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the next round of talks with Iran to achieve a peace agreement between the two countries would probably be held over the weekend.
The US president said he might go to Islamabad if the deal was achieved.
"If a deal is signed in Islamabad I may go," Trump said. "They want me."
"Pakistan have been so great. I might go if the deal is done in Islamabad. The field marshal has been great and the prime minister has been really great in Pakistan so I might go, they want me" he said, once again praising the roles of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of the Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir for their roles in the mediation efforts.
JUST IN: President Trump said he could travel to Islamabad to seal a deal, praising Pakistan’s leadership and signaling he “might go” if an agreement is signed there:
“The field marshal has been great. The Prime Minister has been really great in Pakistan so I might go.” pic.twitter.com/WTPEZ138YMHe said that Iran has agreed to hand over its store of enriched uranium and that the two sides were "close" to a peace deal ending six weeks of conflict.
"They've agreed to give us back the nuclear dust," Trump told reporters at the White House, using his name for the enriched uranium stockpile that the United States says could be used to build nuclear weapons.
Read: Trump announces 10-day ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel
"There's a very good chance we're going to make a deal."
However, Trump warned that if there was no deal, fighting would resume, but that he did not think the ceasefire would need to be extended as Iran was willing to do things it previously wasn't.
He launched the war claiming that Tehran was rushing to complete an atomic bomb, an assertion not backed by the UN nuclear watchdog.
Washington has reportedly sought a 20-year suspension of Iran's uranium enrichment programme, while Tehran has proposed suspending nuclear activity for five years -- an offer US officials rejected.
Tehran insists its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.
Its foreign ministry said Wednesday that Iran's right to enrich uranium was "indisputable", although the level of enrichment was "negotiable".
When asked about the announced ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, Trump said he thinks there will be a deal soon.
"Today they're going to be having a ceasefire, and that'll include Hezbollah," he added.
He said Lebanese and Israeli leaders could meet at the White House over the next week or two.
"We're going to have a meeting, first time in 44 years, and Lebanon will be meeting with Israel," said Trump. "And they're probably going to do it at the White House."
Also Read: Iran's envoy says any future US talks to be held only in Pakistan
Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim al-Moussawi told AFP the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group -- which has been fighting Israel since early March -- would respect the ceasefire if Israeli attacks on the militants stopped.
The Lebanese and Israeli prime ministers welcomed the ceasefire, which came days after the US and Iran agreed a separate truce and as Pakistan pursued diplomatic efforts to arrange a new round of talks between foes Washington and Tehran.
'Historic crossroads'
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had told reporters on Wednesday that further talks between the US and Iran "would very likely" be in the Pakistani capital.
Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi said no date had been set for the next round of talks.
US Vice President JD Vance, who led the first round, has said Iran is being offered a "grand bargain" to end the war and address the decades-old dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme.
Israel's defense minister Israel Katz said: "Iran is standing at a historic crossroads: one path is renouncing the ways of terror and nuclear armament... in line with the US proposal, the other leads to an abyss.
"If the Iranian regime chooses the second path, it will quickly discover there are even more painful targets than those we have already struck."
Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world's crude oil normally flows, has been disrupted by Iranian forces since the US-Israeli offensive began and is now the focus of the US blockade.
Washington has sought to turn the screws on Tehran with a blockade of its ports, with US Central Command claiming to have "completely halted economic trade going into and out of Iran by sea".
CENTCOM said it had already turned back 13 vessels that tried to sail out of Iranian ports.
Keeping up the pressure, the United States slapped fresh sanctions on Iran's oil industry on Wednesday, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said targeted "regime elites".
Unless Washington relents, Iran's armed forces "will not allow any exports or imports to continue in the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman and the Red Sea," said the head of the Iranian military's central command center Ali Abdollahi.
The military advisor to Iran's supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei also warned that Iran would sink American ships in the strait if the United States decides to "police" the key shipping channel.