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Hello and welcome to News Hour, live from the BBC World Service in London. I'm Rebecca Kesby.

Today, we begin with a story that has two completely different narratives.

Late on Saturday night, President Trump issued a threat to obliterate Iran's power plants within 48 hours if they didn't open the Strait of Hormuz.

That deadline would have expired within the next hour or so.

But early this morning, via a social media post, Mr Trump dramatically

changed course, saying that productive conversations had taken place regarding, quote,

a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East. Well, that one post from

the president was enough to see stock markets recover slightly and the global price of oil to drop almost immediately.

Speaking to reporters later on Monday in Memphis, Mr. Trump gave more details about the talks that he said were taking place.

So we are now having really good discussions. They started last night, a little bit, the night before that.

But we'll see what happens.

I think this is a very good chance we're going to end up in a deal.

And so we're giving it five days, and then we're going to see where that takes us.

And I would say at the end of the spirit, I think it could very well end up being a very good deal for everybody, as good as if we went all the way and just literally annihilated the place which if we don't have to do that, that would be a good thing.

But this is where it gets complicated because the Iranian foreign ministry has bluntly denied

that any talks are taking place with the Americans.

The Speaker of the Iranian Parliament posted on social media that Mr. Trump was spreading fake news

to manipulate the oil markets.

Iran's Fars News Agency, which is affiliated with Iran's Islamic

Revolutionary Guard Corps, also quoted an unnamed Iranian sources saying that Mr Trump had backed

down after hearing that Iran would target all power plants in the region if their power plants

...