Trump suggests Iran talks could yield deal by weekend while Tehran denies progress

US president insists ‘we will get’ Iran’s uranium stockpile, says he wants separate end to Lebanon conflict; Iran’s FM says Israeli attack on Beirut would trigger renewal of war

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that talks with Iran could yield results over the coming weekend and are going “very well,” despite denials from Tehran that there has been progress toward an agreement.

“I hear the negotiation itself is going very well actually,” Trump told reporters, adding of a potential deal: “It might not happen… It could happen over the weekend.”

Trump said that under a deal being discussed with Iran, “we will get” Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium — which has been a major sticking point in negotiations — repeating his insistence the material would be removed from within the Islamic Republic’s borders.

Trump has said his key aim in the war is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon with its highly enriched uranium. While Iran, whose leaders are sworn to Israel’s destruction, denies seeking nuclear arms, it has amassed uranium enriched to levels with no civilian application.

Tehran has insisted throughout negotiations on its right to retain its right to enrich uranium.

Additionally, Trump said on Wednesday he wants to separate talks on the conflict in Lebanon and those on the war between the US and Iran, although Tehran insists the conflicts are linked.

“I’d like to separate it, I’d like to have a separate thing because it is, it is separate,” Trump told reporters, hours before Washington announced Israel and Lebanon agreed to a renewed ceasefire, which aims to establish “pilot” security zones the Lebanese army would control, and from which Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists would be banned.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that any attack on Beirut would trigger a “full-scale resumption” of the Middle East war, as Israeli leaders have threatened that the IDF would target the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, if the Iran-backed terror group targets Israeli communities.

“Any attack on Beirut will have grave consequences and will lead to a full-scale resumption of the war,” the Tasnim news agency quoted Araghchi as telling Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen TV. “Our armed forces are ready to strike Israel if it attacks Beirut.”

Araghchi also told Al Mayadeen TV that lines of communication with Washington are still open, but “no tangible progress” has been made in negotiations to end the war, a day after Iranian media reported that Iran’s negotiators have stopped communicating with ceasefire mediators over fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

“Communications with the Americans have not been cut off, and messages have been exchanged regarding the need to stop aggression against Beirut, but no tangible progress has been made in the negotiation process,” he said.

“Returning to the negotiating table is conditional on ensuring the rights of the Iranian people, ending the war in Lebanon, and stopping tensions in the region.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Kuwait said it had suspended commercial flights after an Iranian drone attack heavily damaged the country’s airport, killing one person and causing injuries, hours after Iran and the United States traded missile strikes in the region.

Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said they did not fire at Kuwait’s airport and blamed the destruction on US interceptor missiles that failed to hit their targets, according to Iranian state media.

The US military said that was not accurate, and that Iranian drones targeted the airport deliberately. The US Central Command also denied an Iranian claim that it had targeted a US military ship in the Gulf of Oman.

After the attacks on Kuwait, Araghchi said in a post on X that his country’s armed forces are conducting “self-defense strikes on sites the US is permitted to use to attack civilian shipping and violate the ceasefire.”

“Any hostile act will be met with an immediate, decisive response,” he added.

Israel launched its campaign against Iran, alongside the US, to degrade the Iranian regime’s military capabilities and distance threats posed by Iran.

The ceasefire declared by Trump in April came with core declared goals of the war unfulfilled, including ensuring that Iran does not attain nuclear weapons, destroying its missile program, and creating the conditions for the Iranian public to overthrow the regime.