“President Donald Trump has repeatedly said the U.S. and Iran are on the cusp of a deal to end their conflict. The reality has proven more elusive — in part because of the nature of the negotiations themselves,” Bloomberg reports. 

“The latest instance came Thursday, when Trump claimed that a deal was imminent, telling reporters that an agreement could be signed as early as this weekend. Iran rejected Trump’s claims, with its semi-official Fars news agency reporting that the regime’s leaders had not approved any text with the US.”

“While Trump’s penchant for overstatement, threats and enticements help explain the confusion on the state of the negotiations, there’s another reason a deal has been so hard to reach: the unwieldy way in which the US and Iran are actually carrying out their negotiations.”

Sweden sees a possibility that Russia may seek to test NATO’s cohesion and its commitment to mutual defense through some kind of military attack in the “relatively near term,” Bloomberg reports.

New York Times: “The United States plans to significantly reduce the aircraft and warships that it makes available for NATO operations in Europe, according to two senior European officials, accelerating America’s effort to scale down the protection it has offered to European allies for eight decades.”

“The decision would limit NATO’s ability to launch long-range strikes and conduct surveillance.”

President Trump on Thursday claimed Washington had “ended the war in Iran” and said a formal peace treaty would be signed in the coming days, Politico reports.

Said Trump: “I don’t know if you heard, but we ended the war with Iran today.”

In Iran, however, foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei disputed that an agreement to end the war had been reached.

“The missile attack that Iran launched against Qatar in mid-March sent plumes of smoke rising from the largest natural-gas production facility in the world,” the Washington Post reports.

“It destroyed sections of a plant that provides nearly a fifth of the globe’s gas supply, imperiled multibillion-dollar contracts with China and other clients, and damaged the prospects of finding an earlier end to the war by dragging Qatar, a key mediator between the United States and Iran, into the fight.”

“There was an additional, hidden consequence. The strike also dashed secret efforts by Qatar to keep its gas complex, known as Ras Laffan, off Iran’s target list, according to Middle Eastern security officials and Western officials briefed on the intelligence.”

“President Trump on Thursday insisted the U.S. was nearing a deal on peace talks with Iran, pulling back from his threats just hours earlier to launch more military strikes and seize Iran’s oil infrastructure,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Trump said Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had signed off on the plan, which he said would be completed in coming days, paving the way for additional talks on Iran’s nuclear program.”

“Tehran said it hadn’t decided.”