Washington: US President Donald Trump has said that America was not seeking a war with any country amid tensions with Iran after Washington indicated that Tehran was behind the drone attacks on Saudi Arabian oil fields. “Do I want war? I don’t want war with anybody,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday when asked if he wants war with Iran.
When asked if Iran was behind the attacks, Trump said “it’s certainly looking that way at this moment”, seemingly distancing himself from his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who asserted on on September 14, the day of the atatcks, that “Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia”.
“We have to find out definitively who did it. We have to speak to Saudi Arabia,” Trump said. He added that Pompeo and others “will be going over to Saudi Arabia at some point” to discuss the incident. Iran has strongly dismissed the US accusations as “baseless” and “big lies”.
The attacks on September 14 was carried out by 10 unmanned aircraft. It hit the Hijra Khurais - one of Saudi Arabia’s largest oil fields, producing about 1.5 million barrels a day - and Abqaiq, the world’s biggest crude stabilization facility, which processes seven million barrels of Saudi oil a day, or about 8 per cent of the world’s total output.
There were fears that the rising tensions could spark a military conflict in the Gulf between Iran and the US or Saudi Arabia. While speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump also noted that diplomacy has not been exhausted when dealing with Iran. “It’s not exhausted. Nothing is exhausted. And we’ll see what happens,” he added.
Meanwhile, China confirmed on Tuesday that it would send a delegation to the US to prepare for the 13th round of high-level trade talks between the two nations scheduled for October.
Upon an invitation from the US side, Liao Min, deputy director of the Office of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs and vice Finance Minister, will lead the delegation on Wednesday for trade consultations, Xinhua news agency reported.
China announced last week that it would drop additional tariffs imposed on certain US products. In turn, US President Donald Trump delayed increasing tariffs on Chinese products from 25 per cent to 30 per cent. The Chinese government then exempted US pork and soybeans, along with other agricultural products, from being subject to punitive tariffs.
