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Peace talks with Iran are ongoing and progressing well and what Tehran says publicly differs from what it tells US officials in private meetings, the White House said on Monday.
“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,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing.
She also said that President Donald Trump was interested in calling on Arab countries to pay for the cost of the Iran war but gave no more details about that proposal, adding that she thinks Trump would have more to say on the issue himself.
Leavitt’s comments on the status of peace talks echo those of Secretary of State Marco Rubio who said earlier on Monday that the United States privately had received positive messages.
Rubio said there were internal “fractures” inside the Islamic republic and that the United States hopes figures with “power to deliver” take charge.
“We are hopeful that that’s the case,” Rubio told the ABC News programme “Good Morning America.”
“There are clearly people there talking to us in ways that previous people in charge in Iran have not spoken to us in the past, some of the things they’re willing to do,” he said.
Rubio nonetheless also denounced the Islamic republic in broad strokes, insisting that the war aimed to end its nuclear weapons building capacity, which President Donald Trump said he accomplished during an attack last year.
“These people are lunatics. They are insane. They are religious zealots who can never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon because they have an apocalyptic vision of the future,” Rubio said.
Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon and the UN nuclear watchdog has said no bomb was imminent.
Rubio’s comments came on the same day that President Donald Trump threatened to destroy Iran’s oil export hub of Kharg Island and other oil wells and power plants if it does not agree to a deal to end the war soon.
Trump threats
Trump wrote on his Truth Social network that the United States is in “serious discussions” with “a more reasonable regime” in Tehran.
“Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘open for business,’ we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinisation plants), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched,'” Trump said.
Kharg Island, 24 kilometres off the coast of Iran in the northern Persian Gulf, is central to the country’s oil exports and economy.
Any attack on its energy infrastructure could also have serious consequences for global oil markets that have already been pushed to the brink.
About 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports leave the country via the island, much of it destined for China and other Asian markets.
Kharg Island is relatively small — about 8 kilometres long and 4–5 kilometres wide — but it hosts extensive infrastructure, including storage tanks, pipelines and offshore loading terminals.
The island’s terminals can load roughly 1.3–1.6 million barrels of crude per day, helped by deep-water access that allows very large crude carriers to dock.
Additional sources • AP, AFP