Trump suggests “present” from the Iranians might pave the way for diplomacy
Trump suggests “present” from the Iranians might pave the way for diplomacy
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President Donald Trump alluded to a goodwill gesture from the Iranians that he described as a mystery “present,” suggesting that the gift has helped with diplomatic efforts to end the war.
“They gave us a present, and the present arrived today. It was a very big present, worth a tremendous amount of money, and I’m not going to tell you what the present is, but it was a very significant prize,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
The present, Trump said, was “oil and gas related.”
“It was related to the flow, to the Strait,” the president said, referring to the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil thoroughfare that’s been effectively shut down.
He said the gift indicated that the Iranian negotiators talking with his administration were willing to follow through on their promises.
“They gave it to us, and they said they were going to give it, so that meant one thing to me: we’re dealing with the right people,” Trump said, later adding, “They’re the only ones that could have done it.”
And he described what’s happened in Iran as “regime change” for the country.
“We have, really, regime change. You know, this is a change in the regime, because the leaders are all very different than the ones that we started off with that created all those problems,” he said.