KUALA LUMPUR: President Donald Trump said talks with Iran to end the war could soon resume and end in a deal, telling the world to watch out for an "amazing two days", while US forces imposing a blockade turned back vessels leaving Iranian ports.
Reuters reported that with the prospect of US and Iranian officials returning to Pakistan for more talks, Vice President JD Vance, who led negotiations that ended on Sunday (April 12) with no breakthrough, said he felt positive about where things stood.
"I think you're going to be watching an amazing two days ahead," Trump told ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl, adding he did not think it would be necessary to extend a two-week ceasefire that ends on April 21.
"It could end either way, but I think a deal is preferable because then they can rebuild," Trump said, according to a post by Karl on X.
"They really do have a different regime now. No matter what, we took out the radicals," he added.
Officials from Pakistan, Iran and several Gulf states also said negotiating teams from the US and Iran could return to Islamabad later this week.
Talks last weekend broke down without an agreement to end the war, which erupted on February 28 with US-Israeli strikes on Iran, triggering Iranian attacks on its Gulf neighbours and re-igniting a parallel conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Trump's optimism helped nudge global stocks higher with fresh record highs in view. Benchmark oil prices - having fallen on Tuesday (April 14) and in early Wednesday trade - climbed to around US$96 per barrel, after the US military said its blockade had completely halted trade going into and out of Iran by sea.
More vessels were being turned back under the US blockade, including a US-sanctioned, Chinese-owned tanker Rich Starry that was making its way back to the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday (April 15) after exiting the Persian Gulf.
Earlier, the US military said it had intercepted eight Iran-linked oil tankers since the start of the blockade on Monday (April 13), according to the Wall Street Journal. A US destroyer stopped two oil tankers attempting to leave the Iranian port of Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman on Tuesday, a US official said.
Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency reported that Iran would use alternative ports to those on its southern coastline to bypass the US blockade and expand import capacity across different regions of the country.
Trump, speaking to the New York Post on Tuesday, said his negotiators were likely to be back, thanks largely to the "great job" Pakistan's army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, was doing to moderate the talks.
Later on Tuesday, at an event in Georgia, Vice President Vance said Trump wanted to make a "grand bargain" with Iran but there was a lot of mistrust between the two countries. — Reuters
