US 'In Very Deep Negotiations' With Iran, Says Trump

WASHINGTON, April 12 (Bernama-Anadolu) -- The US is "in very deep negotiations" with Iran, President Donald Trump said on Saturday, as a delegation led by Vice President JD Vance held hours of talks in Pakistan's capital Islamabad.

"They've been meeting for many hours," Anadolu Ajansi reported Trump told journalists as he departed the White House.

"We're going to see what happens. We're in very deep negotiations with Iran. We win regardless. We've defeated them militarily

"Maybe they make a deal; maybe they don't. It doesn't matter. From the standpoint of America, we win," he added.

Trump's remarks came after the US, Pakistan, and Iran began holding trilateral face-to-face meetings on Saturday, aimed at ending the broader regional conflict in the Middle East amid a fragile two-week ceasefire brokered earlier this week.

Trump argued that the US had destroyed Iran's Navy, including min-laying vessels that had operated in the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway where roughly 20 per cent of the world's oil trade passes.

"Their Navy has gone. 158 ships. They have 28 water droppers - mine droppers, they call them. All of them are sunk. They probably have a couple of mines in the water. We have mine sweepers out there. We're sweeping the Strait (of Hormuz).

"In addition to that, we're negotiating. Whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me, because we've won," he said.

-- BERNAMA-ANADOLU