President Trump issued an early morning warning to Iran Thursday, telling Islamic Republic officials to buckle down and “get serious” about negotiating an end to the four-week-old war “before it is too late.”
“The Iranian negotiators are very different and ‘strange,’” the president posted on Truth Social. “They are ‘begging’ us to make a deal, which they should be doing since they have been militarily obliterated, with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state that they are only ‘looking at our proposal.’ WRONG!!!
“They better get serious soon, before it is too late,” Trump added, “because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty!”
The president’s rant came as Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar confirmed for the first time that indirect talks between the US and Iran were taking place, mediated by the Islamabad government as well as Egypt, Turkey and other countries.
Reports circulated earlier this week that Vice President JD Vance could travel to Pakistan this coming weekend to seal a cease-fire deal, but a source told The Post that while such an intervention was a “possibility,” it was not “even close to happening.”
Trump initially raised hopes for an end to the war that has decimated Iran’s top leadership and rattled the global economy on Monday, when he announced he was postponing planned strikes on the Islamic Republic’s energy infrastructure by five days to allow time to work out an agreement to end the fighting.
While the US and Israel kept up the pace of airstrikes targeting Iran’s military apparatus and regime figures, Washington submitted a 15-point peace outline to their Tehran counterparts.
The American demands included Iran dismantling nuclear facilities and capabilities as well as forgoing the pursuit of atomic weapons; handing over all enriched uranium to international authorities; limiting its missile program to self-defense uses; keeping the vital Strait of Hormuz open to energy shipping; and cutting off funding for terrorist proxies.
Despite Trump claiming Tuesday that Iran had agreed to forgo pursuit of a nuclear weapon, the Iranians responded that the US demands were unacceptable and presented their own outline that would give them control of the strait and keep funding its terror proxies — including Hamas and Hezbollah.
While the talks have been taking place, American ships and ground forces have been en route to the Middle East ahead of potential ground operations to secure the Strait of Hormuz, through which an estimated one-fifth of the world’s oil passes.
The military campaign against Iran reaches the end of its fourth week Friday, and Trump suggested on the war’s second day it would last “four weeks or so.”
“What we had to do is get rid of the cancer,” Trump told Republican lawmakers Wednesday night. “We had to cut out the cancer. The cancer was Iran with a nuclear weapon. We’ve cut it out. Now we’re going to finish it off.”
“They are negotiating, by the way,” the president added, “and they want to make a deal so badly, but they’re afraid to say it because they figure they’ll be killed by their own people. They’re also afraid they’ll be killed by us.”
