WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump is interested in calling on Arab countries to pay for the cost of the Iran war, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday, adding talks with Tehran to end the conflict are progressing well.
Leavitt, asked at a news briefing whether Arab countries would step up to help pay for the war, said she would not get ahead of the Republican president but that it was an idea that Trump had.
“I think it’s something the President would be quite interested in calling them to do,” Leavitt said.
“It’s an idea that I know that he has and something that I think you’ll hear more from him on.”
Leavitt said that what Tehran says publicly differs from what it tells U.S. officials in private and that Iran had privately agreed to some of Washington’s points.
“Despite all of the public posturing you hear from the regime and false reporting, talks are continuing and going well. What is said publicly is, of course, much different than what’s being communicated to us privately,” Leavitt said.
Trump earlier on Monday warned that Iran’s energy plants and oil wells would be obliterated if it did not open the Strait of Hormuz, after Tehran described US peace proposals as “unrealistic” and fired waves of missiles at Israel.
