US President Donald Trump has said that Iran’s new leadership has expressed a willingness to open talks with him and that he has agreed to engage.“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them. They should have done it sooner. They should have done what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long,” Trump told The Atlantic magazine in an interview.The remarks come amid heightened tensions in West Asia following recent military strikes in which Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed and retaliatory actions that have significantly altered the regional security landscape.Trump also indicated that several Iranian officials who had been involved in negotiations in recent weeks were no longer alive, apparently referring to casualties from recent hostilities.“Most of those people are gone. Some of the people we were dealing with are gone, because that was a big hit. They should have done it sooner. They could have made a deal. They should’ve done it sooner. They played too cute,” the US President was quoted as saying.The developments signal a possible diplomatic opening even as the region continues to grapple with uncertainty and escalating rhetoric.