Tehran Reviews U.S. Positions as Trump Says Talks in 'Final Stages'

Washington and Tehran sent contradictory overnight signals about the state of bilateral talks aimed at ending the war, with President Donald Trump telling Coast Guard cadets the negotiations had entered their “final stages” while Iranian officials simultaneously said the United States had failed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz “despite a thousand tricks” and framed Tehran’s presence at the table as something short of surrender.

Trump’s remark, reported by Middle East Eye early Thursday, is the most concrete public claim of progress the White House has offered since the U.S.-Iran channel was reopened earlier this month. Speaking to graduating cadets, the president said the two governments were “very close” to terms and that talks were in their “final stages.” He did not specify what those terms were, what venue was hosting the discussions, or which third parties were mediating.

Iran’s foreign ministry, in a separate statement hours earlier, confirmed it had “received U.S. views” and was reviewing them. The acknowledgment is the closest Tehran has come to publicly affirming an active text-based exchange, though the ministry did not characterize the contents and did not commit to a response timeline.

The official Iranian framing of the talks, however, was sharply different in tone from Trump’s. In remarks carried on Al Jazeera’s live blog, senior Iranian officials said there would be “no surrender to the U.S.” and that diplomacy was “wiser” than war — language presenting engagement as strategic choice rather than capitulation. The Hormuz pushback, repeated through the night across Iranian outward-facing channels, ran in parallel to the foreign ministry’s quieter acknowledgment that it was reviewing U.S. positions.

Two audiences, two scripts

Both sides are speaking to two audiences at once. Trump’s “final stages” line plays to a U.S. public weary of a months-long crisis and to congressional Republicans, some of whom — as we reported Tuesday — have begun publicly questioning the administration’s war authority. Iranian leaders’ insistence on no surrender plays to a domestic constituency that has absorbed direct strikes, sanctions pressure, and a near-three-month equity market closure that only ended Wednesday.

The Hormuz claim in particular operates on two levels. Operationally, the strait remains a contested space: Tehran’s claim that the U.S. has “failed” to reopen it tracks with the live shipping disruption that has kept oil markets on edge even as crude prices eased on Tuesday. Politically, the claim functions as leverage — a public reminder that whatever concessions Tehran might accept in talks, it retains the means to keep the chokepoint contested.

The diplomatic backdrop has hardened in Tehran’s favor at the United Nations. On Wednesday, 137 countries backed a UN draft resolution calling for guaranteed freedom of navigation through the strait without endorsing the U.S. military approach to enforcing it — a result Iranian negotiators are likely to reference at the table.

Netanyahu reportedly frustrated

Inside the regional coalition, the talks have produced visible friction. Middle East Eye, citing Israeli reporting, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been frustrated by the pace and direction of the U.S.-Iran channel. The report did not specify whether Netanyahu’s frustration stems from being insufficiently consulted, from disagreement over the substance of any emerging deal, or from concern that a settlement could lock in Iranian capabilities Israel wants degraded further.

The friction is consequential. Israeli warplanes have operated alongside U.S. assets through much of the cycle, and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s “grave concern” warning over the Barakah facility earlier this week put nuclear-adjacent infrastructure squarely back in the diplomatic frame. Any settlement that Israel views as too generous on Iran’s enrichment program — or too quiet on its proxy network — risks a public split between Washington and Jerusalem at exactly the moment Trump is claiming a win.

What is actually known

Stripped of rhetoric, the verifiable elements of the overnight cycle are narrow:

• Trump publicly characterized U.S.-Iran talks as being in their “final stages.”
• Iran’s foreign ministry confirmed it had received U.S. positions in writing and was reviewing them.
• Iran publicly maintained that the U.S. has failed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and that any agreement would not constitute surrender.
• Israeli leadership is reportedly unhappy with the trajectory.

What is not known: the specific terms under review, the mediator (Oman, Qatar and Switzerland have all featured in prior rounds), the timeline for an Iranian response, and whether any element of the deal touches sanctions relief, nuclear monitoring, or the maritime zone Tehran has claimed unilateral authority over.

A senior U.S. official has not yet been put on the record to corroborate the “final stages” characterization, and the White House has not released a readout of any recent exchange. Until either side publishes terms — or until a third-party mediator confirms a framework — the gap between Trump’s public optimism and Tehran’s public defiance is the story, not a contradiction to be resolved by the audience.

The next test will be whether Iran’s review of the U.S. text produces a written counter-position or a public rejection. Officials in Tehran did not indicate which to expect.