Trump Says Iran Deal 'Very Close' on Day 100 of War

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Saturday that a deal with Iran is “very close,” telling NBC News in an interview that Tehran has effectively dropped any claim to a nuclear weapon, according to a live blog from Middle East Eye citing the NBC interview. The remarks landed on day 100 of the US-Israel war on Iran and hours after Iran’s envoy formally raised the strike campaign at the IAEA Board of Governors in Vienna.

What he said

“We have a couple of points. They don’t even seem like big points,” Trump said of the outstanding issues, per the Middle East Eye writeup of the NBC interview. “They’ve conceded the fact that they will not have nuclear weapons. We had a clause in there…” The president did not specify the clause, the format of any agreement, or the channel through which the concession was conveyed.

Trump’s framing — that the gap is narrow and the core proliferation question is already settled — is not matched by any public Iranian statement to that effect. Tehran has not announced a concession on weaponization, has not confirmed an active bilateral channel with Washington, and has spent the past 48 hours escalating its public legal posture rather than signaling capitulation.

The president also did not address what would happen to the ongoing US air and naval campaign, to Israeli operations, or to the sanctions architecture if a deal text materialized. Nothing in the NBC excerpts referenced a ceasefire mechanism, a timeline, or a venue.

Where Tehran stands

The Iranian government’s visible posture this week has been escalation in diplomatic forums, not concession. On Saturday morning Iran’s representative in Vienna asked the IAEA’s 35-member board to treat the strikes on its enrichment and research sites as a violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and of the safeguards framework — a formal internationalization of the dispute that is detailed in our earlier report.

Two days earlier, Iranian officials were describing the broader negotiating track as stalled even as the IAEA’s own leadership was floating optimism. The agency’s director general said publicly that a deal was “close,” while Tehran characterized talks as at a deadlock. On the same day, Iranian officials set out explicit conditions for any Trump-backed agreement, including the lifting of sanctions and recognition of an enrichment right — terms that are not obviously compatible with Trump’s claim that Tehran has already “conceded” on weapons.

The negotiating track

The most active third-party channel is not in Vienna. Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi traveled to Tehran on Saturday carrying a “special letter” for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Al Jazeera reported, and Lebanese officials have publicly identified the Pakistan track as the most credible mediation effort in play. Whether the letter is connected to whatever Trump is referencing in the NBC interview is not known.

The IAEA’s own role remains parallel rather than central. Director General Rafael Grossi’s “close” assessment earlier this week ran alongside, not through, any formal US-Iran negotiation. The agency does not broker political settlements; it documents technical compliance. A Grossi statement that a deal is close describes what he is hearing from member states, not what he is negotiating.

The counter-pressure

International pressure for de-escalation is building from outside the Western-Iranian axis. Pope Leo this week said the war on Iran fails Catholic “just war” criteria, according to Middle East Eye, a rare and pointed papal intervention against an ongoing US-led military campaign. The Vatican statement does not bind any party, but it adds a moral-authority voice to a diplomatic field that has otherwise been dominated by governments with direct strategic interests.

What to watch

Three near-term markers will indicate whether Trump’s “very close” assessment reflects a real text or a rhetorical posture: a formal readout or joint statement from either capital, the Iranian response to OPEC+ decisions due Sunday, and the Monday market open in Asia, where oil and defense names will price the credibility of a deal regardless of what either government says about it.