U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said that negotiations between Washington and Tehran are continuing “at a rapid pace” and that Israel and Hezbollah will stop attacking each another following a flare-up of fighting over the past weekend.
“Talks are continuing, at a rapid pace, with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
The president also wrote in another social media post that he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that no Israeli troops will be sent to Beirut following recent Israeli strikes on the Lebanese capital city.
Additionally, Trump said he spoke with representatives of Hezbollah, a terrorist organization based in Lebanon, who said they “agreed that all shooting will stop” and that “Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel.”
The comments from Trump came as tensions rose in the Middle East after Israel and Hezbollah launched strikes upon one another, and also as the United States and Iran attacked each other over the weekend.
Trump’s comments emerged after Israel’s government ordered strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut and as Hezbollah fired rockets at northern Israel, including the outskirts of the coastal city of Haifa.
A joint statement by Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the orders to attack targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs followed what they called repeated violations of the ceasefire by Hezbollah and “attacks against our cities and citizens.”
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated Monday that any ceasefire agreement between the United States and Iran is a “ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon.”
“Its violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts,” he wrote in a post on X, according to a translation from Persian. “The United States and Israel bear responsibility for the consequences of any breach of the truce.”
But Trump told the news outlet that the Iranians have not told the United States they are stopping negotiations.
Also in the CNBC interview, the president said that oil and gas prices would drop soon, although he did not say why.
“I think the oil will be dropping like a rock in the very near, you know, the very near distance,” Trump said, adding that Americans who understand the importance of Iran not being able to obtain a nuclear weapon—a key demand of his administration—are “willing to pay a little bit more” for gas.
On Monday, the United States said that its military bombed radar and drone sites in Iran after Tehran shot down an American drone over the weekend. Iran then said it targeted American soldiers in Kuwait with missiles, which the U.S. military says it shot down.