At an emergency meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, United States President Donald Trump shockingly claimed that Washington is about to hold “direct” talks with Tehran for the first time since 2018.

Trump did not elaborate or provide additional details.

Indirect talks were approved by Tehran just last week.

We’re having direct talks with Iran, and they’ve started. It’ll go on Saturday. We have a very big meeting, and we’ll see what can happen.

And I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious, and the obvious is not something that I want to be involved with.

US President, Donald J Trump

The announcement came after Trump openly threatened to bomb Iran, which was dismissed as not very probable by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

Trump is infamous for exaggerations, bluster and untrustworthiness, as in his first term, he failed to honor the 2015 JCPOA agreement on Iran’s nuclear energy program.

Trump’s remarks seem to chagrin the scandal-ridden Netanyahu, who is repeatedly accused of trying to push Trump to expand the Israeli US genocide in Gaza into a disastrous, all out regional war.

(Washington may) be manipulated to allow or participate in a war on Iran and destabilize the entire region.

So we are hopeful that we can continue to push him because he himself expressed the desire and hope that he will be the president of peace.

So on those basis, we urged him to hold Benjamin Netanyahu accountable, not to appease him, and not to give him everything he wants.

Nihad Awad, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

With his predecessor, Joe Biden, launching war in Ukraine and immediately joining the Israeli genocide in Gaza, many believed Trump’s campaign promises to avoid more endless, unwinnable wars.

President Trump has the opportunity to establish peace in the region that is based on justice and not further any escalation or start any wars.

He told the world that he wants to end wars, he doesn’t want to start one, so he can do that. He has the ability, and I hope, that he has the will.

If he does otherwise, he will just destroy his own legacy by his own hands.

Nihad Awad, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

Tehran continues to stress that it approves of bilateral relations on an “equal footing”, that it seeks peaceful relations and peaceful resolutions to current conflicts, and has lodged a formal complaint to the United Nations Security Council about Trump’s “reckless and belligerent and illegal threats”.