مرگ بر آمریکا
سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی
Trump's claims of an Iran peace deal come with caveats
Donald Trump's abrupt abandonment of his short-lived "Project Freedom" as he claimed progress had been made towards clinching a "Complete and Final Agreement" with Iran, soothed oil markets and sent hopes soaring of a breakthrough.
But expectations were soon tempered by the mercurial US president himself.
US media cited unnamed American officials as saying that the two sides were closing in on a one-page memorandum to end the war in the Gulf.
An anonymous source told Reuters news agency: "We will close this very soon. We are getting close."
But hours after posting on Truth Social on Tuesday evening that he was suspending Project Freedom to see whether "the Agreement can be finalized and signed", Trump abruptly changed tone.
He said on Wednesday morning that an Iran deal was a "big assumption" and bombing at "a much higher level and intensity than it was before" would resume.
The president's latest threat came less than 24 hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at the White House that Operation Epic Fury, the American-led military strikes of Iran, was over.
Later on Wednesday morning, Trump again expressed optimism in a brief telephone call with PBS about prospects of an Iran deal, while acknowledging a breakthrough had previously proven elusive.
"I felt that way before with them," he said.
Trump also told PBS it was "unlikely" he would send US envoys for a second round of Iran peace talks.
Axios had reported that Washington and Tehran were inching closer to a one-page, 14-point memorandum to end the war.
But Axios also reported skepticism among some US officials about the prospects for a deal and who would even approve such an agreement among Iran's leadership.
Iranian parliamentarian Ebrahim Rezaei, a spokesperson for Iran's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, wrote on X that the 14 points reported by Axios amounted to a US "wish list".
In the US, foreign policy experts injected a note of caution, too.
Trump has repeatedly said that Iran has agreed to US demands, and that a deal was close since he announced an ongoing ceasefire on 7 April.
On 17 April, he told CBS that Iran had "agreed to everything" and would allow the US to remove its enriched uranium – a claim officials in Tehran rejected outright.
In the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump again maintained: "They want to make a deal, they want to negotiate."
Grant Rumley, a former Middle East policy adviser to both the Biden and Trump administrations said that it was "highly unlikely".
Shipping experts said that Project Freedom, which was announced on Sunday, had a limited impact, with only two American ships passing through the new shipping lane located south of the normal passage.
Ali Vaez, Iran project director for the International Crisis Group think tank, told the BBC, "There is no real policy process in this administration," he said. "The president makes decisions based on impulse more than process, therefore there are inconsistencies that happen all the time."
Mick Mulroy, a former assistant undersecretary of defence for the Middle East at the Pentagon, said, "It's unclear if the pause in Project Freedom was because of this one-page memorandum or because the 1,500 ships currently stuck behind the US blockade line wouldn't transit even with the US security umbrella," he said. "Iran is likely trying to determine that as well."