US President Donald Trump has expressed willingness to meet with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as diplomatic efforts to end the ongoing conflict between Washington and Tehran show little progress.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview that Trump is open to meeting anybody, including Iran’s supreme leader. “I’m pretty confident in saying that if the Ayatollah said tomorrow he wanted to meet with President Trump, the president would meet him,” Rubio told Bloomberg.
Rubio emphasized that Trump’s willingness to meet is not based on personal agreement with Khamenei, but on the belief that direct dialogue is the way to solve international problems. “Nation states need to interact with one another – I serve under a president that’s willing to meet with anybody,” the Secretary of State said.
The conflict between the US and Iran began more than three months ago after initial US and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February. The war is now mired in a stalemate under a shaky ceasefire, with the Strait of Hormuz largely closed to maritime traffic.
Trump has previously described Khamenei as “one of the most malevolent individuals in history” and announced that the Supreme Leader was killed in coordinated US-Israeli strikes on Saturday. However, Iran has continued to resist diplomatic overtures while launching missile attacks on regional targets.
The latest hostilities flared on Wednesday, with the US military saying Iranian missile attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait, and other Gulf targets were either thwarted or failed, as tensions remained high despite diplomatic possibilities.
Oil prices jumped by more than 1% in early trade on Wednesday as the conflict continued to disrupt global energy markets, highlighting the economic stakes in resolving the standoff between the world’s remaining superpowers.
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