ISLAMABAD: United States President Donald Trump once again praised Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) and Chief of the Army Staff, Field Marshal Asim Munir, on Saturday for their efforts to facilitate peace and negotiations with Iran, despite another pause in the diplomatic process.
His remarks came after he cancelled a planned visit by envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff to Pakistan for talks with Iranian officials. The Iranian foreign minister also left Pakistan following meetings with senior officials.
“I think Pakistan is terrific. The field marshal (Asim Munir) is fantastic. I think the prime minister of Pakistan (Shehbaz Sharif) is great, and, you know, they would like to see something happen,” Trump said.
However, he announced that he would not be sending his team to Islamabad, citing the long journey and travel costs. “But we’re not going to be travelling 15 or 16 hours to have a meeting with people that nobody has ever heard of,” he said, adding that it would be very expensive and that he is “a very cost-conscious person”.
He said that he was willing to deal with “whoever runs the show” to reach an agreement with Tehran, claiming that “there’s tremendous infighting” on the Iranian side.
“There’s tremendous infighting. They’re probably fighting for leadership. In many cases, I think they’re fighting not to be the leader, because we knocked out two levels of leaders, but I’ll deal with whoever we have to,” Trump claimed while talking to reporters before departing Florida via Air Force One.
“We have all the cards. They have no military left, practically. They have no leaders left. We don’t know who the leaders are … I don’t think they know who the leaders are,” Trump said.
“I’ll deal with whoever runs the show … but there’s no reason to wait two days, have people travelling for 16, 17 hours … When they want, they can call me; we have all the cards,” he added.
Trump said the Iranian side “gave us a paper that should have been better, and interestingly, immediately, when I cancelled it, within 10 minutes, we got a new paper that was much better”.
In response to a question on whether the US will continue the ceasefire, Trump said he has not “even thought about it”, adding that the Iranian side “offered a lot but not enough”.
He added that the “whole deal is not complicated: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon”.
This marks the second time this month that the US president has publicly praised PM Shehbaz and CDF Munir for their engagement in efforts to facilitate talks with Iran aimed at ending the conflict.
