'US Speaking With Many Leaders, Not One, In Iran': Trump On Talks Claim

The US is speaking with a lot of leaders in Iran and not just one person, President Donald Trump told CNBC today. He said it was not him who initiated the talks, but the other side.

"I didn't call them. They called. They wanted to make a deal, and we are also willing to make a deal," he said.

Trump then said something else to reporters at a press briefing, that the US has been talking to a particular senior leader in Iran, not the new supreme leader. "... Nobody has heard from him, and we don't know if he is living. I don't want the leader of Iran to be killed; nobody wants that job right now."

His fresh comments on the claimed talks came hours after Iranian media reported no conversation has taken place between the two nations.

They said Trump's claim was false.

"Trump's false claim is an attempt to escape his recent threat on Iran's power infrastructure. Iran's stance on the Strait of Hormuz has not changed," Iranian media IRIB said.

Trump had earlier given a deadline to unblock the strait. Later, he announced a five-day pause against striking Iranian energy and power infrastructure in order to allow talks to go ahead.

The US president kept on insisting the talks were indeed going on. In a press briefing today, Trump said there are "major points of agreement" in the US-Iran talks which he said must result in Tehran giving up its nuclear ambitions and enriched uranium stockpile.

Trump said the talks were being conducted with a "top person" but not the country's supreme leader.

"We've wiped out the leadership phase one, phase two, and largely phase three. But we're dealing with the man who I believe is the most respected and the leader," Trump told reporters. "We want no enrichment, but we also want the enriched uranium."

"Regime change" was effectively underway, he said, while warning that if talks with Iranian figures contacted by the US do not succeed then bombings will continue. He described the unnamed Iranian leader who's talking to the US as someone who's "very reasonable."

There's automatically a regime change with so many top officials killed in the conflict, he said.