President Donald Trump revealed on Monday that White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and advisor Jared Kushner have been negotiating with Iran amid the ongoing war, which played a role in Trump’s decision to delay by five days potential strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure in response to Iran’s threat to fully close the Strait of Hormuz.

“We have had very, very strong talks. We’ll see where they lead. We have major points of agreement, I would say almost all points of agreement. Perhaps that hasn’t been conveyed. The communication, as you know, has been blown to pieces. They were unable to talk to each other,” Trump told reporters from Palm Beach International Airport before boarding Air Force One. 

“But we have had very strong talks,” Trump added. “Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner had them. They went, I would say, perfectly. If they carry through with that, it’ll end that problem, that conflict, and I think it’ll end it very, very substantially.” 

“We’re going to get together today, by probably phone because it’s very hard to find a country, it’s very hard for them to get out. But we’ll at some point very soon meet. We’re doing a five-day period. We’ll see how that goes,” Trump continued. 

But the president kept the option of continued military action open: “If it goes well, we’re going to end up with settling this. Otherwise, we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out,” he said.  

Trump’s comments came hours after he announced that he was delaying his planned attacks on Iranian energy targets by five days based on the parties’ “very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East,” which he said will continue over the course of the week. The president announced the pivot about 12 hours before his 48-hour deadline to the Islamic Republic was set to expire.

Any future military action, Trump wrote, will be determined “subject to the success of the ongoing meetings and discussions.”

Axios reported on Monday morning that Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan had been “passing messages between the U.S. and Iran over the past two days in an effort to de-escalate” tensions and pause the fighting.

Officials from the three countries had separate conversations over the weekend with Witkoff and with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the outlet reported, while sources said Witkoff and Kushner were negotiating directly with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament.