President Donald Trump is obligated to try to "find peace where he can," but that doesn't mean he plans to release or lift sanctions on Iran, even though he has not made an official declaration concerning the country's potential role in the devastating bombings of Saudi oil facilities over the weekend, White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley said Tuesday.
"He's not going to release or raise or lift sanctions on Iran, considering what they've been a party to for the past 40 years, and that hasn't changed," Gidley told Fox News' "America's Newsroom."
Gidley noted that Trump had said in the Oval Office Monday that he believes it's likely that Iran was behind the bombings, "we don't have an announcement yet, and if we are going to make that declaration, he wants to be ironclad."
But aside from the attacks on the Saudi facilities, "Iran has been involved in terrorist behavior for 40 plus years," said Gidley. "We have sanctioned them and put a maximum pressure campaign on Iran like no other administration in history. Their economy is teetering on the verge of collapse, all because this president refuses to let them continue to proffer death and destruction across the globe."
It's hoped that the pressure campaign will bring Iran to the negotiating table said Gidley.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been personally sanctioned, said Tuesday there will be no talks with the U.S. at any level" and that "all officials in the Islamic Republic unanimously believe" this.