Trump is giving Iran talks ‘a little bit of room,’ US ambassador to UN says

US President Donald Trump has paused attacks on Iran to allow more room for diplomacy, the US ambassador to the United Nations said.

“He’s giving talks some space, he’s giving it a little bit of room,” Mike Waltz told the broadcaster on Sunday.

Waltz did not provide further detail on the nature of the talks, but there has been a weekend lull in the fighting between Iran and the United States. The Pentagon paused bombing operations after 13 nights of escalating strikes and there were no weekend reports of attacks by Iran on its neighbors.

Asked about the pause, a senior official in Trump’s administration said on Saturday that the president “has always been clear that his preference is diplomacy, but he has shown Iran what will happen if they fail to come to the table in a serious way.”

A senior Iranian source told Reuters on Sunday that Iran will halt its own attacks as long as the United States maintains its pause on strikes, but added that Tehran remains skeptical of US intentions.

“Iran’s position remains ‘attack for attack’: if the attacks stop, Iran will also halt its operations. That message has already been conveyed to the United States,” the source told Reuters.

“There is more skepticism than optimism about the halt in attacks. The prevailing view is that the pause is tactical rather than genuine,” the source added.

The New York Times and CNN both reported that Trump had backed off plans to escalate the war with even bigger military options after concerns were raised on Friday by some of his advisers, including over whether US missile defense stocks were running low from protecting US bases in the region.

CNN and the Times both identified Pentagon Chief of Staff Dan Caine as having raised such concerns. CNN said Vice President JD Vance also had expressed reservations.

News site Axios reported that Trump had been receiving plans for strikes on Iran from the Pentagon every afternoon for two weeks and signing off on them each night, until Friday when the latest plan was presented to him and he decided not to go ahead.

Trump’s decision to pause strikes has come at a turning point in the war, with both sides testing the boundaries of escalation that they set before a ceasefire ended major fighting in April and the interim agreement reopened Hormuz in June.