Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a telephone conference with US President Donald Trump on Wednesday, expressing optimism regarding the prolonged truce between Washington and the Iranian regime, Reuters reported.
Ankara, a NATO member directly bordering Iran, has maintained aggressive diplomatic channels with the United States, Tehran, and Pakistani mediators to broker a permanent resolution to the Middle East hostilities.
The Turkish presidency released a formal briefing outlining the details of the dialogue, emphasizing Erdogan's approval of the current diplomatic pause.
“During the meeting, our President stated that he viewed the decision to extend the ceasefire in the conflict zone in our region as a positive development (and) that he believed a reasonable solution to the disputed issues was possible," the official statement read.
Erdogan additionally pressured Washington for immediate intervention to prevent the strategic situation in Lebanon from spiraling further downward amidst the ongoing warfare between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization.
President Trump later offered his own public assessment of the interaction, characterizing the discussion with Erdogan as “very good" and praising the unique diplomatic shorthand the two populists share.
“Isn’t it nice to have relationships with some very tough people? He’s a tough guy, and I have a relationship with him that nobody else has," Trump told reporters.
“He’s been, I think, very much of an ally. Some people doubt that, but I think he’s been a great ally."
Trump also told reporters on Wednesday that he is willing to wait for Iran's latest response in negotiations between the two countries, but only for a few days.
"If I can save war by waiting a couple of days, if I can save people being killed by waiting a couple of days, I think it's a great thing to do," the president told reporters at Joint Base Andrews.
"If we don't get the right answers, it goes very quickly," he stated. "We're all ready to go. We have to get the right answers. It would have to be a complete 100% good answers, and if we do, we save a lot of time, energy and lives, most importantly."
Trump also said that US officials were impressed by the Iranians who were negotiating with his administration.
"We're dealing with people that are, I think, far more reasonable than the people that are really no longer with us," the president said. "We're dealing with some people with talent, with good brain power, and we're pretty impressed by it, so hopefully those people will make a deal that's going to be great for everybody."
On Monday, Trump revealed in a post on Truth Social that the US was planning on striking Iran on Tuesday, but postponed the attack because of what he referred to as "serious negotiations" were being held.
Speaking to reporters later in the day, Trump said, “We were getting ready to do a very major attack tomorrow. I've put it off for a little while, hopefully, maybe forever, but possibly for a little while, because we've had very big discussions with Iran, and we'll see what they amount to."
On Tuesday, Trump spoke at a Congressional picnic at the White House, commenting among other things on the situation vis-a-vis Iran.
“I think we’re going to be finished with that very quickly," Trump said.
“They want to make a deal so badly. They’re tired of this, and we’re going to be finished with that very quickly. Hopefully, we’re going to get it done in a very nice manner," he added, while once again stressing that “they won’t have a nuclear weapon."