Get your news delivered straight to you by 7am - sign up to our new Morning Mail newsletter for FREE See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred SourceBy JOE ROSSITER, REPORTER Published: 07:23 BST, 9 June 2026 | Updated: 08:00 BST, 9 June 2026
US President Donald Trump has said negotiators are in the 'final throes' of talks for a peace deal with Iran.Mr Trump previously claimed a peace deal with Tehran was imminent several times but efforts stalled and strikes have continued despite a ceasefire beginning on April 8.Speaking as he travelled back from a basketball game early on Tuesday, Mr Trump said Iran and Israel 'were going back and forth' on a deal to pause the conflict.He added: 'They both agreed through me to stop and we're in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal.'Asked how long a deal could take, he said it would be ready in 'two or three days'.Iran has repeatedly said any deal should include relief from Israeli bombing for Lebanon, which has faced ongoing strikes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government continued its campaign against Tehran-backed Hezbollah.Mr Netanyahu said 'fire on that front is contained' after Israel retaliated against Hezbollah missiles on Sunday despite US pressure for restraint.Iran said on Monday it would attack again if Israel continued bombing Lebanon, to which Mr Netanyahu said his country would respond 'with full force'.US President Donald Trump said negotiators were in the 'final throes' of a peace deal with IranIsraeli defence minister Israel Katz also insisted the campaign in Lebanon would continue regardless and said his country would strike Beirut's southern suburbs in response to each Hezbollah attack.After Tehran fired missiles towards northern Israel on Monday, Tel Aviv retaliated directly - seemingly defying US pressure - in the first exchange of fire between the two since the ceasefire on April 8.There were no reported casualties in either country, though Israeli strikes on Monday killed at least 14 people in Lebanon.Mr Trump had said he did not believe Israel needed to respond and added Mr Netanyahu did not 'call the shots'.He said 'final negotiations' for peace would continue 'subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way'. But speaking to the BBC overnight, the president said the Israeli prime minister had not defied him to strike Iran, saying the missiles were 'already on their way' by the time the two spoke.Mr Trump added: 'If I tell him to do something, he does it.' Mr Trump said of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: 'If I tell him to do something, he does it'However Mr Netanyahu said he had told the president: 'Israel has a full right to self defence and we are exercising it as required.'US Vice President JD Vance told Fox News on Monday that though his country and Israel shared interests, their positions did not always align.'The Israelis and the United States, we have a lot of shared interests,' he said.'But we also have some situations where our interests diverge.'A spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry said on Monday that peace talks continued but could be affected by the unrest.Iranian state television reported that Pakistan's had interior minister visited Tehran to deliver what he said was a 'special letter' to supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei.Pakistan is a mediator in the ongoing peace talks, though the letter's content is not known.On Monday afternoon Iranian President Masoud Pezehskian said of his country: 'We have neither abandoned the field nor the negotiating table.'Tehran has been locked in conflict since US-Israeli strikes in February began a war which has killed almost 3,500 people in Iran, according to its health ministry, and severely disrupted global shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
