US President Donald Trump said he was calling off strikes on Iran on Thursday and flagged the signing of a possible deal with Tehran after top-level talks.

“Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have… cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.

“Time and place of the signing to be announced shortly,” added Trump.

Earlier on Thursday, Trump vowed “very hard” strikes on Iran and promised to take the country’s key oil infrastructure, in what would be a major escalation in the war with the Islamic Republic.

Trump threatened “bigger, more powerful” attacks on what would be a third successive night, as he pushes Tehran to turn their increasingly nominal ceasefire into a permanent peace deal.

“The United States will be hitting Iran… VERY HARD TONIGHT,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social network.

“At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela,” he added.

Kharg Island is at the heart of Iran’s oil export industry, a lynchpin of the country’s battered economy. It sits off Iran’s Gulf coast, hundreds of kilometres northwest of the narrow, strategic Strait of Hormuz.

Trump talked about a possible seizure of the island earlier in the US-Israeli war in Iran, which began on February 28.

The United States toppled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in January and now says it has control of its oil industry, a strategy that Trump has repeatedly said he wants to repeat with Iran.