Pakistan's Khan says mediating between Iran, Saudi Arabia

 Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan said on Tuesday that U.S. President Donald Trump had asked him to help defuse tensions with Iran and that he had already spoken with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in an attempt to mediate.

The United States blames Iran for an attack on the world’s biggest crude oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia on Sept. 14 and has said they will present evidence to back that up. Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group, which has been fighting a Saudi-led military coalition since 2015, has claimed responsibility. Iran denies involvement.

Khan met with Trump on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations on Monday.

“I immediately spoke to President Rouhani yesterday after the meeting with President Trump, but I can’t say anything right now more than this except that we’re trying and mediating,” Khan told reporters at the United Nations on Tuesday.

Khan said he had been in Saudi Arabia before New York and spoken with Prince Mohammed bin Salman who also asked him to talk to Rouhani.

An already-tense relationship between Iran and the United States has worsened over the past year since Trump withdrew from a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and world powers, saying it did not go far enough, and reimposed sanctions on Iran as part of a “maximum pressure” policy.