Trump Rejects Report He Offered Iran Sanctions Relief or Unfreezing of Funds

President Donald Trump denied on Monday a report by the American news website Axios, stressing that he offered Iran neither the lifting of the sanctions imposed against it nor the unfreezing of the Islamic Republic’s funds blocked abroad, in exchange for a deal on Tehran’s nuclear energy program, amid new efforts by mediators.

“Axios just published an article saying that ‘Trump’ offered sanctions relief and the unfreezing of assets in Iran. This is untrue. I offered them nothing!” the U.S. president stressed, writing the last word in capital letters via Truth Social, also demanding that the specific report be withdrawn “immediately.”

The text, citing sources in President Trump’s administration, refers to possible U.S. concessions in exchange for Iranian commitments regarding the country’s nuclear energy program.

Talks between the Americans and Iranians resumed last week, on the margins of the UN General Assembly; however, their future looks highly uncertain.

Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported on Monday that no new meeting is planned.

Trump had hinted on Sunday that negotiations would resume soon, even as he rejected Tehran’s proposal to open the Strait of Hormuz within seven days.

This strategically important sea passage, through which a fifth of the hydrocarbons consumed worldwide passed before the war, is now at the heart of the conflict that erupted on February 28, when the U.S. and Israel jointly launched an attack on Iran.

Since then, the Islamic Republic has claimed control of it, and the American side has responded to its de facto closure by imposing, among other things, a blockade of Iranian ports in the Persian Gulf.

The dialogue between Tehran and Washington had effectively been suspended after the collapse of the initial deal, the so-called Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, signed in June by the presidents of the two countries, Trump and Massoud Peshmerga.