US President Donald Trump said that the United States has no immediate plan to renew strikes against Iran during an interview with the Financial Times on Tuesday.
The statement followed US strikes on Iran's Qeshm Island after the regime claimed to have downed an American drone, a US official confirmed to The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
On ongoing indirect negotiations with Tehran, Trump claimed, “We seem to be getting everything we want.”
He added that the US military is “locked and loaded” if strikes are necessary, but noted that there may be no reason to reignite military action.
Trump further told the FT that the US is "not really in a war" with Iran, citing Operation Midnight Hammer as having "wiped out their nuclear potential incapacity."
"We then hit them again, Epic Fury, etc . . . But if you think about it, we haven’t really had a war with them in a long time, six months, maybe more," said Trump.
He added that talks regarding Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium, which has been a sticking point in previous negotiations, are ongoing.
“Even though it’s under hundreds of tons of rock, I would say that I’m not happy that it will be there,” Trump stated, adding that "we’ll see how that all works out."
Trump's comments came after a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Tuesday that Iran and the US are far from reaching a deal to end the war.
The US president had told reporters on Monday that he was not considering striking Iran after the midterm elections, which are set to conclude on Wednesday morning.
Iran concludes third day of talks with Qatari mediators in Doha
US Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday that there had been "a number of good conversations with the Iranians" after officials from the Islamic regime met with Qatari mediators in Doha for a third consecutive day of talks.
"Look, the president and I both feel pretty good about the prospects for potentially coming to a negotiated settlement," he said. "We're going to keep on working at it."
Vance sent a letter to Iran on Wednesday about negotiations, according to The Wall Street Journal, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called it a "positive step" toward resuming talks between the two countries in comments to Al Jazeera on Friday.
Asher Smith contributed to this report.