Trump: 'Deal Is Imminent' as Iran Talks Restart Monday on Hormuz, Denuclearization

President Donald Trump said Sunday that a deal with Iran is "imminent" and negotiations will begin Monday afternoon over the Strait of Hormuz and Tehran's nuclear program, one day after he called off what he described as a potentially massive U.S. attack on the Islamic Republic.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said the United States had been prepared to launch the attack Sunday before Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Iran urged him to hold off to allow diplomacy another chance.

"We were all set to go, just about at this time right now, and it would have been a massive attack," Trump said. "But when the allies asked to call it off, you got to sort of say, 'Well, let's see.'"

"The reason they asked is they think there's a deal," he continued. "There's a deal on Hormuz, and then there will be a deal on the nuclear, or you might call it the denuclearization of Iran. I call it the denuclearization of Iran."

Trump said negotiations with Tehran would begin Monday afternoon.

"Now what we're doing is we're talking to them in the form of a negotiation," he said. "It begins tomorrow afternoon, and we'll see."

Trump later said, "the deal is imminent" regarding the Strait of Hormuz and, ultimately, Iran's denuclearization, while acknowledging there were competing views over whether he should proceed with the attack.

"The deal is imminent having to do with the Hormuz Strait and also ultimately, the denuclearization of Iran," Trump said.

Asked whether Iran faced a deadline for reaching an agreement, Trump said the United States remained prepared to strike but that he would prefer a diplomatic resolution.

"We're ready to go any time we want," Trump said. "Would I rather make a deal? I'm not looking to kill people. Because people die. A lot of people die. We don't want that."

Trump said Iran had "very strongly" asked the United States to hold off and acknowledged Tehran could publicly dispute his account.

"They said, 'We'd like to make a deal,'" Trump said. "Now, you know, I don't know what they said, because a lot of times they'll say that to me, and then they'll go out and say, 'We don't know what he's talking about.' Obviously, they don't want to be attacked."

Iranian state media on Sunday denied that Tehran had asked Trump to cancel the strikes, while Iranian officials disputed that an agreement had been reached to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump's decision came after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman urged him to pursue diplomacy during a phone call Saturday. Trump said Sunday that he asked the crown prince directly whether he preferred a U.S. attack or an agreement.

"I said, 'What would you rather do? Would you rather have us do this or not?'" Trump recalled. "They said, 'We would much prefer a deal as opposed to an attack, because you don't know where these attacks lead.'"

Trump said the planned operation would have been "by far the biggest attack since World War II" and "disastrous" for Iran.

"They didn't want us to do it," he said. "And frankly, Saudi Arabia didn't want it either. They thought that a deal is imminent."

The remarks came after Trump announced Saturday night that he had canceled the attack after saying the "perimeters" of a deal had been reached to immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end Iran's nuclear threat. Trump said at the time that Israel had joined the United States in agreeing to hold off.

Diplomatic efforts over Hormuz appeared to continue Sunday. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said negotiations with Oman over the strategic waterway had entered their "final stages," according to Iranian state media.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei, however, said the talks with Oman did not mean Tehran had agreed to reopen the strait, insisting it would "under no circumstances" return to the arrangement that existed before the war began February 28.

A regional official involved in the mediation efforts told the Associated Press (AP) that the latest proposal would return Washington and Tehran to negotiations over reopening Hormuz and halting attacks across the region. In exchange, the United States would end its naval blockade of Iran and allow Tehran to resume oil exports under the terms of the earlier ceasefire framework, according to the official.

No final agreement has yet been reached, however, leaving Monday's negotiations to determine whether Trump's latest pause in military action produces the breakthrough he said is now "imminent."