White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday that President Donald Trump “has not set a firm deadline" for Iran to submit a proposal for an end to the war.
Her comments came a day after Trump announced that the Iran ceasefire would be extended for an unspecified amount of time.
The President, Leavitt said, is “maintaining and generously offering a bit of flexibility to a regime who has been completely tarnished because of Operation Epic Fury."
“There's obviously a lot of internal division [in Iran]. This is a battle between the pragmatists and the hardliners in Iran right now, and the President wants a unified response. And so as we await that response, there's a ceasefire with the military and kinetic strikes, but Operation Economic Fury continues," she stressed, “and the effective and successful naval blockade continues as well of ships and vessels that are moving to and from Iranian ports. We are completely strangling their economy through this blockade. They're losing $500 million a day."
“The President has not set a firm deadline to receive an Iranian proposal, unlike some of the reporting I've seen today. Ultimately, the timeline will be dictated by the commander-in-chief and the president of the United States," Leavitt stressed.
She also said, “We all see a lot of different messaging and rhetoric coming out of Iran - and I would caution you against taking anything they say at face value. What they say publicly is much different than what they concede to the US and our negotiating team privately."
Leavitt explained that Trump "chose to extend the ceasefire because it's Iran who needs to get their act together. The United States and President Trump have been very clear in our demands, and our red lines, and what we need to see...from the very beginning."
Earlier on Wednesday, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that Iran had accepted the US request for a ceasefire but had not yet decided whether to participate in talks.
Meanwhile, Iran three times attacked ships sailing southwards in the Strait of Hormuz.