US President, Donald Trump has rebuffed Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin’s offer to help mediate Israel-Iran conflict, urging him to resolve Russia’s war in Ukraine before stepping in elsewhere.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump disclosed that he spoke with Putin yesterday. Trump said, “He actually offered to help mediate, I said, ‘do me a favour, mediate your own.”
“Let’s mediate Russia first. Okay, I said, Vladimir, let’s mediate Russia first. You can worry about this [Iran-Israel conflict] later, but I think that’s going to work out too.”
Donald Trump
The US President described the Russia-Ukraine war as “so stupid.”
He added that “far more people” have been killed in the war in Ukraine than have been previously reported. “A building falls down, they say nobody was hurt. Ridiculous,” he said.
Putin has been pitching himself as a possible mediator between Israel, home to a large Russian expat community, and Moscow’s strategic partner Iran, while the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine raises doubts about his suitability for the role.
According to Russian news agency, Putin spoke by phone with Emirati President, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan today, about the Israel-Iran crisis, with both leaders expressing “deep concern” and the need for a quick resolution.
During the call, Putin reiterated Russia’s willingness to help mediate the crisis and updated his Emirati counterpart about his conversations with other regional leaders.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov claimed that Russia and the US are in contact regarding the conflict.
He earlier warned that direct US military assistance to Israel could radically destabilise the situation in the Middle East, where an air war between Iran and Israel has raged for six days.
Ryabkov was quoted by a news agency as saying that Russia cautions the US against supplying such assistance to Israel, or even considering it. He said Moscow was in contact with Israel and Iran.
Israel said that it has struck 40 sites in Iran today, including centrifuge production and weapons facilities, while Iran launched a swarm of drones at Israel.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharov stated that the world is “millimetres away from catastrophe” due to daily Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
Trump Claims Iran Requests White House Meeting
In his address to reporters, Trump stated that Iranian officials reached out to him and suggested visiting the White House.
Without offering any evidence, he said that Iran is “totally defenceless, they have no air defence whatsoever.”
Trump reiterated that his threat for Iran to agree to an “unconditional surrender” means giving up and “then we go blow up all the nuclear stuff that’s all over the place there.”
“For 40 years, they’ve been saying death to America, death to Israel, death to anybody else that they didn’t like. They were bullies, they were schoolyard bullies. And now they’re not bullies any more, but we’ll see what happens.”
“I wouldn’t say that we won anything yet, I would say that we sure as hell made a lot of progress. We’ll see. The next week is going to be very big, maybe less than a week.”
Donald Trump
However, Iran denied Trump’s claim that Iranian officials asked for a meeting at the White House. “No Iranian official has ever asked to grovel at the gates of the White House,” the Iran mission to the UN stated on X.
“The only thing more despicable than his lies is his cowardly threat to ‘take out’ Iran’s Supreme Leader.
“Iran does NOT negotiate under duress, shall NOT accept peace under duress, and certainly NOT with a has-been warmonger clinging to relevance.”
Donald Trump
This echoes previous remarks from Ali Khamenei who said that Iranians “do not answer well to the language of threat.”
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