“Well, it’s looking that way,” Trump said when asked if Iran was responsible for the Saturday drone strikes. “We’ll let you know definitively. ... That’s being checked out right now.”
He added that it "certainly would look" like Iran was behind the drone strike.
Sitting in the Oval Office with Bahrain’s Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, Trump went on to stress that he doesn't want to start a war with Iran, and that the use of diplomacy with Iran was not yet exhausted. "I know they want to make a deal. ... At some point, it will work out," Trump said.
The weekend strikes early Saturday saw two major Saudi Aramco facilities go up in flames following drone strikes, for which Iran-backed Houthi rebels subsequently claimed responsibility. Rebels indicated that they used 10 drones to carry out the strike, and that they will continue to conduct similar attacks until Saudi Arabia ends its "aggression and blockade of Yemen."
Despite responsibility claims from Houthi rebels, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was quick to follow up later Saturday by accusing Iran, tweeting that "Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia."
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) September 14, 2019
Pompeo also stated that there is "no evidence that the attacks came from Yemen."
Iran, in turn, shot down Pompeo's accusations, with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeting that the Trump administration was switching from its "maximum pressure" policy toward Iran to "max deceit."
Trump revealed during the presser that Pompeo and other administration officials will be traveling to Saudi Arabia in an effort to better understand the weekend events. When asked if he had made promises to protect the Saudis, Trump told reporters that he hasn't made any such assurances and that "we have to sit down ... and work something out with [Saudi officials]."
Aside from US-Iran matters, Trump declined to indicate whether or not North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had invited the US president to meet in a recent letter, telling the press that he wasn't prepared to make a visit at present.
