Donald Trump says the deal is nearly done. "I think they've agreed to just about everything we need," the US president told CNBC on Thursday, describing talks with Iran that he said were still moving.

He kept the demand narrow. "We're not looking for regime change. I'm looking for something very simple: they cannot have a nuclear weapon," Trump said. He also claimed the US had left Iran "totally defeated militarily," saying he had struck the country three times the week before after a drone hit a ship.

The timing sits against a funeral. Iran is holding rites for Ali Khamenei, its former Supreme Leader, who was killed in a joint US-Israeli strike on 28 February 2026. His body was brought to a farewell ceremony in Tehran on Thursday night, according to state news agency IRNA, where thousands of relatives of those killed in the US-Israeli attacks had gathered near the site where he died.

Türkiye is sending its number two. Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz will travel to Iran to attend the funeral at Tehran's Imam Khomeini Mosque, representing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Sözcü reported. Yılmaz is set to meet Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian first and convey Ankara's condolences over the 28 February attack.

The rites run through the week. Iranian authorities plan to bury Khamenei on 9 July at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, one of Shia Islam's holiest sites, after ceremonies that move from Tehran to Qom and into Iraq. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is among the leaders attending.

Qatari and Pakistani mediators said the next round of US-Iran talks would come "at the earliest possible time," once the funeral is over.

Then came a darker thread. The New York Times reported Thursday that current and former US officials believed Israel might have been plotting to kill Iran's top negotiators during the spring ceasefire talks. Citing American officials, the paper said Washington feared Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf could be targeted as negotiations intensified in April.

The concern ran high enough, the Times reported, that the Trump administration asked other countries in the region to warn Tehran. Washington learned that at least Qalibaf had been placed on an Israeli target list and urged Israel not to proceed. Any assassination then, US officials reportedly believed, would have ended the talks and restarted the war.

The report described one April flight. Qalibaf's plane, returning from Islamabad, diverted to Mashhad after Iranian security forces detected two Israeli jets entering Iranian airspace. Iranian officials told the Times that Tehran had sought US guarantees, passed through Pakistani and Qatari intermediaries, that its negotiators would not be hit. Israeli Embassy officials in Washington declined to comment. A US official said the talks were continuing and that Trump wanted the peace process "to play out."

At the United Nations, the tone was anything but settled. Iran's ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, told a Security Council session that American bases in the Persian Gulf "bring nothing but insecurity." "The US has no coastal border in our region. It is not their waters. It is not their neighborhood," he said, arguing the council should not have met while technical talks continue on the 17 June framework agreement and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

The US envoy, Mike Waltz, pushed back hard, saying Iran could not be allowed to hold the world's economy hostage and that 136 countries had co-sponsored a resolution demanding the strait stay open. "President Trump's patience is not unlimited," Waltz said.

Iravani said Tehran remains committed to the framework "provided that the United States faithfully fulfils its own obligations," and has opened technical talks with Oman on clearing mines from the strait. He put the American public against the policy, citing polling he said showed 70% of Americans oppose the administration's war stance.