US President Donald Trump said on Monday that planned meetings in Qatar with Iranian officials this week would be "perhaps important, perhaps not".
"The meeting in Doha is going to be perhaps important, perhaps not," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, adding, "We're going to find out."
“We are winning militarily. It's almost won militarily, I would say," stated Trump. And it's really very simple. It's the denuclearization of Iran. We don't want them to have a nuclear weapon, and they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. And they've agreed to that, in all fairness."
His comments came after Iran denied that its negotiators would be meeting with Americans in the Middle East.
Iran had claimed that, while a delegation of experts would travel to Qatar's capital this week for discussions on the implementation of the memorandum of understanding with the US, no meetings would be happening between the two countries.
"An expert delegation from the Islamic Republic of Iran will travel to Doha later this week" to discuss the implementation of clauses of the memorandum, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said.
"We have not yet entered the stage of negotiating a final agreement," he said, noting that "over the coming days, we will not have any negotiation meetings with the US side at any level."
On Sunday, a Trump administration official confirmed that the United States and Iran “will stand down for now" following an exchange of fire near the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend.
Another US official stated that the United States and Iran have agreed to meet in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday for further discussions.
Over the weekend, the US twice struck Iranian targets in the Strait of Hormuz in response to Iranian violations of the ceasefire.
Trump warned on Saturday night that the US may be forced to “militarily complete the job" if Iran continued to violate the ceasefire.
“United States aircraft just struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations, and coastal radar sites, for violating the Cease Fire Agreement, AGAIN! It is very possible that they will never learn!" Trump wrote.
He added, “There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started. If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!"