Washington, May 2:
US President Donald Trump has said that Iran was “dying to make a deal” to end the now paused war and virtually ruled out resuming air strikes.
Trump’s remarks during a media interaction at the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon came at a time when Iran threatened fresh strikes if the US resumed the war which has been paused since the warring sides agreed to a ceasefire on April 8.
“I don’t know that we need it,” Trump said to a question on whether he was getting “antsy to break the ceasefire”.
The US president claimed that the military action had sharply degraded Iran’s capabilities.
“Their navy is gone. Their air force is gone… their drone factories are about 82 per cent down. Their missile production had also been hit. Their missile factories are almost 90 per cent down,” he said.
We obliterated that nuclear capacity of theirs,” Trump said, adding that the Iranian economy was crashing as a result of the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
“They’re not getting any money from oil. And hopefully, it can be worked out very soon,” he added.
“Iran is dying to make a deal,” Trump claimed, adding that only a limited group was aware of the status of negotiations.
“Nobody knows what the talks are except for myself and a couple of other people,” he said.
The US president also utilised the occasion to reiterate the claim to have stopped eight wars, including the India-Pakistan war last year, by threatening to levy tariffs on both the countries.
“But I settled eight wars. And in every case, the people, the prime ministers or presidents wrote letters thanking me,” Trump said.
“And in the case of India, the biggest one would have been Pakistan, India. And the prime minister of Pakistan said, I saved 30 to 50 million lives. But it could have been more than that,” the US president said.
Trump said two nuclear nations were at war and 11 aircraft were shot down.
“They were in the first week of what would have been a very bad war. And I got it solved. You know how I got it solved? By the use of tariffs. I said, “I’m going to charge you tariffs if you guys keep fighting,” the US president said.
Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for stopping the India-Pakistan conflict since May 10 last year, when he announced on social media that the two neighbours had agreed to a “full and immediate” ceasefire after talks mediated by Washington.
India has consistently denied any third-party intervention.