Hours after Trump declared victory, Iran denied any deal exists, attacked commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, and accused Washington of lying. The weekend summit is now in serious doubt.
Iran's Foreign Ministry denied Friday that a final agreement with the United States was imminent ahead of proposed talks in Switzerland this weekend, saying significant work remained to be done, even as President Trump lashed out at what he called Iranian disinformation about the state of the negotiations.
The dual salvos injected fresh turbulence into what had appeared, just 24 hours earlier, to be a diplomatic breakthrough. President Trump had said as recently as Monday that a deal to end the war could be reached in "two or three days," and that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen "immediately" after such an agreement. On June 11, Trump said he expected a deal to be signed in the coming days, possibly this weekend in Europe, after announcing he had canceled planned strikes on Iran and that a settlement had been reached.
But Tehran moved quickly to complicate that picture. Iranian officials said the country had not agreed to any memorandum of understanding or framework deal with the United States, and that there was still considerable distance between the two sides. A senior Iranian official linked with the talks said Iran had not yet agreed to any memorandum of understanding or framework of a deal with the United States.
President Trump, furious at what he characterized as deliberate Iranian disinformation about the terms and the timeline, pushed back sharply. Calling to Fox & Friends, he blamed "fake news" and described media outlets as "crooked," saying that coverage of Iran was falsely portraying Tehran as succeeding. Trump accused Iran of acting in bad faith by publicly misrepresenting the state of the talks. (Ed note: Oh My. All that happened here is that the "Deal Maker" just got had by the Iranians, and they managed to get Trump to stop bombing for a while. President Trump was running around claiming victory, and the Iranians pantsed him.) (Read More)
