President Donald Trump says his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin offered to assist in the war with Iran during a telephone call Wednesday, specifically in relation to enriched uranium.
“He would like to be of help. I said, before you help me, I want to end your war,” Trump told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in the Oval Office.
Earlier, Trump said the conversation with Putin was “very good,” and that a solution to the conflict in Ukraine would come “relatively quickly.”
“He told me he’d like to be involved with the enrichment. He can help us get it,” Trump said.
Moscow has previously proposed taking control of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, mirroring its role in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Trump on Wednesday did not explicitly rule out Iran shipping its uranium to Russia, but suggested he was more interested in resolving the Ukraine war.
“I’ve known him a long time. I think he was ready to make a deal a while ago,” he said of Putin. “I think some people made it difficult for him to make a deal.”