US President Donald Trump said Sunday night that negotiations with Iran would begin on Monday to finalize a deal that reopens the Strait of Hormuz after he again called off a major attack on the Islamic Republic over the weekend.

“We’re talking to them in the form of a negotiation. It begins tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll see if it’s [good]. I’d love to do that. We’d save a lot of lives, save a lot of unnecessary power,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.

When he announced the latest walk-back of a threat to conduct a massive bombing campaign against Iran on Saturday, Trump claimed a deal with Iran was imminent to reopen Hormuz and “end” its nuclear threat. Now, he declined to give a timeline for when such a deal would be reached, and said negotiations would only start tomorrow, though mediators have been discussing such a deal for weeks.

Trump didn’t specify on Saturday which countries, besides Iran, had asked him not to launch the major bombing campaign, but he now identified them as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. That contradicts reporting from the Wall Street Journal, which said the UAE actually wanted Trump to escalate against Iran.

“We were all set to go at this time right now, and it would have been a massive attack… but [then] the allies asked to call it off… The reason they ask is they think there’s a deal. There’s a deal on Hormuz, and then there will be a deal on the denuclearization of Iran,” Trump said.

The president had said on Saturday that the deal on the table would address both Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear program. His latest comments suggested that the nuclear file won’t be addressed until a subsequent agreement, and that the first deal would largely restore the memorandum of understanding that was inked in June. That MOU gave the sides 60 days to reach a deal on Iran’s nuclear program, but there are now less than 30 days left in that window.

Trump said Sunday that a plan had been in place for US forces to carry out “the biggest attack since World War II.” But he decided to scrap the plan and give diplomacy more time to play out after hearing from Gulf leaders, as well as at the request of unnamed Iranian officials.

“I said to [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman], ‘What would you rather do? Would you rather us do this or not?’” Trump told reporters on Air Force One as he flew back to Washington after spending the weekend at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. “They said we would much prefer a deal as........

© The Times of Israel