US President Donald Trump is “seriously considering” launching fresh strikes against Iran if last-minute negotiations fail to secure a peace deal, Axios reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with discussions within the White House.
Trump convened a meeting with his senior national security team on Friday morning to discuss the conflict with Iran, according to two US officials quoted by Axios. The meeting came as Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir visited Tehran and was joined by a Qatari delegation in an attempt to broker a breakthrough in negotiations.
Trump is seriously considering launching new strikes against Iran barring a last-minute breakthrough in negotiations, sources who have spoken directly with the president told Axios.
Munir is expected to meet on Saturday with Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, the commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a key figure in Iran’s decision-making process.
Axios reported that a US official briefed on the diplomatic efforts described the negotiations as "agonising" with drafts "going back and forth every day" without much progress.
The Friday meeting at the White House was attended by Vice President J. D. Vance, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and other officials.
"Iran is dying to make a deal. We’ll see what happens. But we hit them hard, and we had no choice because Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. They cannot have it,” Trump said at an event at the White House on Friday.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in Sweden that “slight progress” had been made during talks with Iran.
Rubio, who was attending the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting in Sweden, said he did not want to exaggerate the progress, adding there had been “a little bit of movement, and that’s good”.
Trump also altered his weekend plans amid the escalating situation. He had been scheduled to spend the weekend at the Bedminster Golf Club in New Jersey but instead returned to the White House on Friday evening after a political rally in New York ahead of the November mid-term elections.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he would not attend his son Don Jr.'s wedding this weekend due to "circumstances pertaining to government and my love for the United States of America." "I feel it is important for me to remain in Washington, DC, at the White House during this important period of time," he wrote.
A source close to Trump and another person familiar with the matter told Axios that the president had grown increasingly frustrated with the pace of negotiations with Iran over recent days.
According to Axios, Trump had told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday that he wanted to give diplomacy another opportunity. However, by Thursday night, he was leaning towards ordering military strikes.
A source close to Trump also told Axios that the president had discussed the possibility of carrying out a final "decisive" military operation, after which he could declare victory and end the conflict.
