Senior Iranian officials have denied that Iran held talks with the United States, just hours after US President Donald Trump claimed “very good and productive conversations” had taken place towards ending the war. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a social media post on Monday that “no negotiations have been held with the US”.

Ghalibaf wrote on X that “Fakenews [sic] is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israeli regime are trapped.” This echoed earlier remarks from Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei, who also denied that any discussions with the US had taken place.

The denials come as the US-Israeli war on Iran has entered its fourth week, with the Israeli military saying on Monday that it had launched a fresh wave of attacks on the Iranian capital, Tehran. Iran has also continued to fire missiles and drones across the wider Middle East and essentially shut the Strait of Hormuz, a critical Gulf waterway through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies transit.

That has sent global energy prices soaring and raised concerns about the war’s escalating toll on people around the world. On Saturday, Trump had threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if the country did not open the Strait of Hormuz to all vessels within 48 hours.

But in an all-caps Truth Social post on Monday morning, the US president said he had instructed the US Department of Defense “to postpone any and all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for a five day period” amid the purported talks with Iran. He said the postponement was subject to “the success of the ongoing meetings and discussions”.

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem noted that while Iran has denied that any talks have taken place, regional actors have been pushing for de-escalation. Hassan Ahmadian, a professor at the University of Tehran, suggested Trump could be using the prospect of talks as a way to backtrack from his 48-hour ultimatum to strike Iran’s energy infrastructure, which would have further escalated the war.

Source: www.aljazeera.com