The United States and Iran are nearing an agreement, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told Bloomberg News in Islamabad on Tuesday.
“Things are shaping up again in favor of a peace arrangement or a deal,” Asif said. “The signals in the last two or three days are that we are close to some sort of an arrangement.”
Asif added that he believed that a long-term peace agreement would benefit the Middle East, according to Bloomberg.
The report follows comments by US President Donald Trump on Sunday demanding compensation from Tehran for American citizens killed or injured in Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-orchestrated attacks, further demanding that the families of killed Iranian protesters be compensated.
Trump: Compensation demand to be included in all future negotiations
"I am likewise demanding compensation from Iran, for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts, for which they are famous, as led initially by General Soleimani, including the families of those killed on the USS Cole, and thousands of others killed in combat," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
"Additionally, compensation should be paid to the families of the hundreds of thousands of innocent protestors that Iran has killed over the last 50 years, not to mention the 52,000 that have been killed in the last five months," he added. "I have instructed my representatives to put this firmly into any, and all, future negotiations."