Name: Trump says US and Tehran have held talks on day 24 of Iran war | BBC News
Uploaded: 2026-03-24T23:02:48.000Z
Duration: 12 min 26 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

It's day 24 of the US-Israel war with Iran,

and over the next 10 or so minutes we'll bring you our daily briefing with the key updates on the conflict.

Let's start with some of today's main developments.

President Trump halts plans to attack Iran's energy infrastructure after what he calls productive conversations with Tehran,

The price of oil tumbles, and stock markets surge as the global economy responds to Donald Trump's comments.

Israel and Iran have continued to launch waves of attacks against each other.

More heavy blasts were heard in Tehran this morning after Israel said it had begun wide-scale strikes targeting infrastructure.

Israel's war cabinet orders the military to accelerate the targeting of bridges over the Litani River in Lebanon, claiming they're being used for terrorist activity.

The Lebanese president calls it a dangerous ex-escalation.

Ahead of a deadline that threatens to dramatically escalate America and Israel's war with Iran, President Trump says he has ordered the US military to postpone plans to attack Iran's energy infrastructure for five days, following what he called productive conversations about a complete and total resolution of hostilities.

Iran's foreign ministry, however, says no such talks have taken place.

Donald Trump had previously set a 48-hour deadline, which was due to expire today, for Iran to reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping lane, or face the obliteration of its power plants.

The US president spoke to reporters this afternoon.

and it's got to be no more wars, no more nuclear weapons.

We'll, at some point, very, very soon meet.

And if it goes well, we're going to end up with, uh, settling this.

Otherwise, we'll just keep bombing our little hearts out.

Well, let's speak to our State Department correspondent, Tom Bateman.

Uh, Tom, so take us through how significant those comments are from the president and whether we think he's preparing for de-escalation.

Well, I think the f-first thing to say is there's still a big question mark over how real or developed these apparent talks actually are.

I mean, you know, one person that has been talking a lot today is President Trump, but

He's been, uh, in front of the media an awful lot in the last few hours.

I think that is in part to try and calm the markets that were once again heading into a tailspin after that threat by him to, um, obliterate Iran's power plants, a move that would ha-had the potential to have a devastating effect on civilian life in Iran.

Now, you know, what he is saying here is that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, his envoys, have been in contact with a top, uh, Iranian, he says, uh, not saying who that is.

A lot of speculation that it might be, um, the parliamentary speaker in Tehran,

but he has said that he is not in discussions with the Americans, although we do have a note from the Iranian foreign ministry saying that there were attempts by the Americans to pass notes, to pass messages to the Iranians via intermediaries.

So clearly, there is some attempt at contact here.

Whether or not it gets to this stage of potentially, as is being speculated by some, particularly Israeli reports, that there could be talks between the Americans and the Iranians in Pakistan by the end of this week, that at the moment feels pretty far-fetched, I have to say.

Trump is putting this all in very glowing terms, talking potential about the potential for a deal being done that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, that would end hostilities.

I think it talks to the bind he remains in, trying to calm the markets, uh, potentially through, uh, some form of negotiation with the Iranians,

but at the same time, keeping up this threat of overwhelming and massive military force.

And here you have a president who is who is saying that, you know, they're potentially close to a deal.

He was saying just on Friday that he wasn't interested in a ceasefire.

Well, within minutes of President Trump's post, there was an immediate reaction from the financial markets, with oil prices falling and stock markets rising.

For more on this, I'm joined by our economics editor, Faisal Islam.

And Faisal, it really was a remarkable reaction from the markets after those comments from President Trump.

Certainly, the initial reaction was, uh, in a kind of league of its own in terms of not just the oil market.

In markets also, quite importantly, for government debt, which has been an area where in the past President Trump has noticed, even as he claims to be immune from, uh, moves in other markets.

It fell 14% in the minutes after President Trump posted that, uh, new news about conversations with Iran from his perspective.

Then when the Iran denied that, it was up 10%, the oil price,

and then it moved more than 5% up or down a further four times.

And the day's trading hasn't even finished yet.

And it just shows you just how difficult it is to price risk in the current environment.

I could tell similar stories about natural gas.

I could tell you similar stories about government debt too, which, frankly, had started to get slightly worrying levels as the markets anticipated a wave of inflation coming from the Gulf, not just in terms of energy prices, but

also in terms of fertilizer prices, uh, the, you know, affecting things like microchips, uh, assuming essentially that this disruption was to last months rather than weeks as a result of the escalation that we had, uh, we had expected, frankly, uh, from yesterday, from the comments yesterday.

Um, uh, so that had, uh, meant that government bond yields, that effectively the interest rate that government pay, pays had shot up in anticipation of banks, uh, central banks having to combat a rise in inflation.

Well, those assumptions then suddenly went away, and they came back, and they went away.

these things, you know, these, these bonds, these for the US and the UK, they're meant to be the safest thing around.

They're meant to be the rock of stability.

We had it in the energy markets, the government debt markets.

We had it to, to a lesser degree in the stock markets.

They're all just trying to sort of process this information, um, that frankly, diplomats are finding it difficult, uh, to process about, firstly, how long this conflict is going to last and what the terms, uh, are going to be.

But I think in general terms, there is also this fear now that even if it ended tomorrow and it's not going to end tomorrow,

but if it did end tomorrow, there would still be a scar on the world economy, a scar from things like production of Qatar, uh, of gas from Qatar has been damaged and won't be fully recovered for years.

Uh, you also have this just general fear now that the Iranians have demonstrated what they can do in the Straits of Hormuz.

Um, and so that is why you have rather, uh, rather a rollercoaster.

I think that's probably understating it in the i across markets today.

Uh, our economics editor, Faisal Islam, thank you.

So how have Iranians reacted to President Trump postponing those strikes?

BBC Persian has been speaking to people inside Iran.

Their messages have been voiced up by our colleagues.

I think this will be very costly for the Iranian people.

Whether Islamic Republic remains or realizes that it's on its loose legs, it will increase the cost to the Iranian people as much as possible.

Well, elsewhere in the region, Israel's defense minister has announced that Israel is expanding its ground campaign in Lebanon against the Iran-backed group Hezbollah.

Israel Katz has ordered the destruction of all crossings over the Litani River, alleging they're being used by Hezbollah to move weapons towards Israel.

Lebanon's president says this will hamper humanitarian efforts.

More than 1, 000 people have been killed in Lebanon and over a million displaced,

but one man from the south says he will return.

No matter how much they destroy and do, we will still manage to reach our lands.

No matter how many roads they cut off, we will return.