{"id":205249,"date":"2026-03-25T03:01:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T03:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/us-says-theyre-talking-iran-says-theyre-not-whos-telling-the-truth-al-jazeera\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T03:01:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T03:01:30","slug":"us-says-theyre-talking-iran-says-theyre-not-whos-telling-the-truth-al-jazeera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/us-says-theyre-talking-iran-says-theyre-not-whos-telling-the-truth-al-jazeera\/","title":{"rendered":"US says they\u2019re talking, Iran says they\u2019re not. Who\u2019s telling the truth? – Al Jazeera"},"content":{"rendered":"

Critics say Trump\u2019s claim of negotiations is a tactic to calm the market, but could the Iranians be ready to talk?<\/em>
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United States President Donald Trump is insistent that \u201cproductive\u201d negotiations have taken place with Iran to end the war he launched with Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> almost a month ago. The major problem with that narrative is that Iran\u2019s top officials have repeatedly denied it.
Amid the fog of war and the propaganda being pushed by all sides, it is hard to know who to believe. But an analysis of what each side has to gain from any negotiations<\/a> \u2013 and a potential end to the conflict \u2013 could bring more clarity.
Trump\u2019s comments that there were \u201cmajor points of agreement\u201d after \u201cvery good\u201d talks with an unnamed \u201ctop\u201d Iranian figure came as stock markets opened in the US for the start of the trading week. The five-day deadline<\/a> he gave for a positive response from Iran also happens to coincide with the end of the trading week.
Many have cynically noted that timing, especially as it comes after a two-week period in which oil prices have fluctuated in line with events in the Middle East, leading to a high of about $120 a barrel last week.
Trump\u2019s talk of negotiations may also give time for more US troops to arrive in the Middle East, if Washington decides to conduct some form of ground invasion of Iranian territory.
Among those questioning Trump\u2019s motives was the man believed by some to be the senior Iranian official Trump was referencing: the Iranian parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf<\/a>.
\u201cNo negotiations have been held with the US, and fakenews is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped,\u201d Ghalibaf wrote on social media.
The impact on stock markets and oil prices is not just relevant to the US and Trump, but also to Iran. However, for Tehran, the benefit comes in the damage the war is doing to the US and global economies.
The Iranian state wants the US to feel economic pain from the war, as a means of deterrence for any future Israeli or US attack on Iran.
Therefore, as much as it is in the US interest to play up talk of negotiations in order to calm the markets, it is also in Iran\u2019s interest to downplay any talk to do the exact opposite, and not give the Trump administration any breathing space.<\/p>\n

Consequently, both sides have their own narratives on negotiations, and public comments will do little to inform us as to whether those negotiations are really taking place, or in what form they may be.
That instead leads us into what each side has to gain from negotiations, and an actual end to the war at the current stage.
Trump appears to have underestimated the consequences of the conflict that he launched with Netanyahu on February 28, and the ability of the Iranian state to withstand the attacks against it without collapsing.
\u201cThey weren\u2019t supposed to go after all these other countries in the Middle East \u2026 Nobody expected that,\u201d he said last week, adding that even \u201cthe greatest experts\u201d didn\u2019t believe that.
Leaving aside that experts \u2013 including US intelligence officials \u2013 had repeatedly made those warnings, reality has now made Trump aware of the consequences he had previously ignored.
While some allies and supporters may continue to push him to plough on with the conflict, Trump has previously shown himself amenable to cutting deals to extricate himself from difficult situations, and it is not far-fetched to see the benefits of doing so in this instance.
The US president has already ordered his government to issue temporary sanctions waivers on some Iranian oil, in an effort to calm oil prices. This is the first time Iran has lifted sanctions on any Iranian oil since 2019, and it will not be lost on Iran that the waivers have come as a result of their policy to expand the conflict to the wider Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, a key waterway through which a fifth of the world\u2019s oil and liquified natural gas transits.
The war was already unpopular in the US \u2013 and now even more so, as consumers see the impact on petrol prices and potentially other areas of the economy, all in the run-up to congressional elections later this year, in which Trump\u2019s Republicans are likely to do poorly.
Trump, therefore, has the options of extending this war \u2013 and suffering the economic and political cost, or ending it \u2013 and facing the criticism that he was unable to finish what he termed as a \u201cshort-term excursion\u201d.<\/p>\n

But whatever Trump wants to do, the decision is not totally in his hands. Iran, attacked for the second time in less than a year, now appears to have less of an incentive to end the war without the establishment of an effective deterrent to another in the future.
Gone are the days of the telegraphed attacks on US assets and the slow climb up the escalation ladder. From the outset of the current war, it was clear that Iran had changed its tactics and was not as interested in restraint.
It is now arguably in the Iranian state\u2019s benefit to drag out the conflict and inflict more suffering on the region, if it wants to ensure its survival.
There may also be a belief that interceptor stocks in Israel are running low, allowing Iran to strike targets more effectively. The thinking \u2013 particularly among the hardliners who now appear to be in the ascendancy in Iran \u2013 will be that now is not the time to stop, and allow those interceptor stocks to replenish.
And yet, Iran is suffering. More than 1,500 people have been killed across the country, according to the government. Infrastructure has been heavily damaged, and the power grid could be next. Relations with Gulf neighbours have nosedived, and, after repeated Iranian attacks, are unlikely to return to their previous levels after the conflict.
More moderate voices in Iran will look at that and think that things could easily get worse. They can argue that some form of deterrence has been achieved, and that the time is now ripe to talk. And if they can get some concessions \u2013 such as a promise of no future attacks, or greater authority in the Strait of Hormuz \u2013 they may decide that the time is right to make a deal.<\/p>\n

Follow Al Jazeera English:<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Critics say Trump\u2019s claim of negotiations is a tactic to calm the market, but could the Iranians be ready to talk?SaveShareUnited States President Donald Trump is insistent that \u201cproductive\u201d negotiations have taken place with Iran to end the war he launched with Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu almost a month ago. The major problem with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":205250,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-205249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}