US President Trump told Axios on Friday that United States and Iranian negotiators will probably meet this weekend, and he expects them to hammer out a final deal to end the war.
Multiple US officials and other sources briefed on the negotiations told Axios that while significant progress has been made and the US and Iran are now closing in on a three-page peace plan, gaps still remain on critical issues.
Trump, who claimed to have personally spoken with the Iranians in recent days, was feeling optimistic, however.
"The Iranians want to meet. They want to make a deal. I think a meeting will probably take place over the weekend. I think we will get a deal in the next day or two," he said in a brief phone interview with Axios.
One element of the deal under discussion would have the US release 20 billion dollars in frozen Iranian funds in return for Iran giving up its stockpile of enriched uranium. The plan also involves a moratorium on Iranian enrichment, the report said.
Trump said he is not going to lift the naval blockade before a deal is reached, and he stressed he wants the Strait of Hormuz to be open for everybody.
Iran announced on Friday that it would open the strait for the remainder of the ceasefire, which ends on April 21, but the details of how that will work remain unclear.
Trump said the deal will "make Israel safe" and stressed "Israel is going to come out great" at the end of the war.
At the same time, similarly to his earlier post on Truth Social, he made clear he wants Israeli strikes on Lebanon to end as part of the ceasefire that was announced on Thursday.
"Israel has to stop. They can't continue to blow buildings up. I am not gonna allow it," he told Axios.
On Thursday, Trump said that the war in Iran should be coming to an end “pretty soon".
“We're doing very well, and I will say the war in Iran is going along swimmingly, we can do whatever we want, and it should be ending pretty soon," the President stated at an event in Las Vegas.
“It was perfect. It’s perfect. It was the power we have," the President added. “We had the most powerful military anywhere in the world."
He stated that while he did not want to strike Iran, “we had to because we can't let them have a nuclear weapon. Can't let them have a nuclear weapon."
American and Iranian delegations met in Pakistan last weekend, but the talks did not result in a deal.
Vice President JD Vance, who led the US delegation to the talks, said on Tuesday that while there is “a lot of mistrust" between the US and Iran, he is optimistic about the prospects of a deal.
(Arutz Sheva-Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)