ALSO SEE: Trump Extends Deadline for Iran to Reopen Strait of Hormuz as Iran Denies Negotiations With US

The president’s announcement sent markets soaring and energy prices diving, as investors bet Iran’s blockade of a key shipping chokepoint could soon end.

President Donald Trump said Monday the United States is negotiating with Iran to end the three-week-old war, declaring that the two sides had two days of “very good and productive conversations” that will continue throughout this week.

It was the president’s first acknowledgment of high-level talks between the two sides since the United States and Israel began bombarding Iran on Feb. 28, hammering the country’s military and leadership, and leading to a global energy shortage that has brought widespread economic pain.

Trump said Iran and the United States have been negotiating a “COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST,” in a post to Truth Social. He said that he had told the U.S. military to postpone strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure for five days, “SUBJECT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE ONGOING MEETINGS AND DISCUSSIONS.”

Trump’s announcement sent markets soaring and energy prices diving, as investors bet Iran’s blockade of a key shipping chokepoint could soon end. As of Monday morning, London’s FTSE 100 index rose 0.5 percent, U.S. stock futures tied to the S…P 500 and the Dow Jones Index jumped 2.5 percent, and Brent crude futures fell more than 10 percent, to less than $100 a barrel.

Trump on Saturday issued a 48-hour warning to Tehran to open the Strait of Hormuz or face strikes on its power plants. That deadline was set to hit Monday evening before the president’s postponement. The U.S. military has been trying to avoid hits on Iranian energy infrastructure to avoid further pressuring global markets.

Trump didn’t specify which Iranian leaders he was speaking to, and Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim News Agency cast his Truth Social announcement as a retreat, writing on X: “Trump backs down.”

A report in Iran’s Fars News, a state-run media company, said there were no direct talks, or any mediated communication between Iran and the United States in the lead-up to Trump’s announcement Monday. Neither the White House nor the Iranian Foreign Ministry immediately replied to a request for comment.

The president has said that the war has killed the first, second and third ranks of Iranian leadership. The new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei — the son of the previous leader, Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the initial strikes of the war — is affiliated with hard-line elements of the Iranian establishment.

Iran has been striking at its Arab neighbors in the region, as well as Israel, seeking to punish countries for their affiliation with the United States as well as to increase pressure to stop the war. Last week. both sides traded strikes on oil and gas infrastructure, adding pressure on already-squeezed global supplies.

The Trump administration has been scrambling to address the mounting issue, first dropping sanctions on Russian oil and then on Iranian oil — a decision that will channel energy revenue directly to Tehran and fund its war effort.

Regional leaders have been increasingly vocal about their desire to reach a truce.

“Whatever your view of Iran, this war is not of their making,” Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi wrote on X, minutes before Trump posted his announcement. “This is already causing widespread economic problems and I fear they promise to get much worse if the war continues. Oman is working intensively to put in place safe passage arrangements for the Strait of Hormuz.”

Oman and Qatar have been pushing for a ceasefire, although it was not immediately clear whether they were involved in the weekend talks.