Patrick Wintour

And bit by bit, the hiccups are being dealt with.

And I think we are probably within 24 hours of an agreement.

Okay.

Trump might just at the last minute balk because there's so much political backlash to what he's agreed to do.

And as ever, I mean, predicting the next steps of Donald Trump is a mug's game.

I do think this time we're pretty close to the endgame.

There has been lots of moments when Donald Trump, partly to manipulate the markets, has sort of suggested a deal is very near.

But I think both sides acknowledge a framework is close and why...

It's close.

It's because the deal will be quite limited in the sense it will be about reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which is this waterway, which is critical to the flow of oil and gas and other critical minerals.

And if they can get a deal on that, then other issues which initially sparked the war, which is Iran's nuclear program, would then be discussed later down the road.

But there are lots of maybe three or four issues that are holding up a final agreement, including when Iranian assets will be released, whether Iran will be able to charge tolls on the Strait of Hormuz, and whether the Lebanese war, which has been between Hezbollah and Israel, will also be brought to a halt.

So those are some of the issues that still need to be resolved.

Of course it would.

What the Iranians are doing, and they're quite clever negotiators, is that they're talking with Oman, which is the country to the south of the...

The Strait of Hormuz, they obviously run its territories to the north.

What they're discussing with Oman and they're saying it's an issue between them alone and doesn't involve America, which is obviously not true.

But what they're saying is that they would not be charging a toll.

They would be charging a fee for services.

Obviously, those fees have not been charged in Oman.