‘We’ll see what happens on sanctions’

Boltonistas put in resignations

WASHINGTON, Sept 12, (Agencies): Three top aides to former national security adviser John Bolton submitted their resignations on Wednesday, a day after Bolton and President Donald Trump parted ways.

Garrett Marquis, Bolton’s top spokesman, Sarah Tinsley, his communications director, and scheduler Christine Samuelian all resigned in what an administration source called an amicable fashion.

“It was an honor to serve my country, and I wish the president and the administration success moving forward,” Marquis said in a brief statement.

The trio of aides has worked for Bolton for years.

Marquis, who White House officials say was well-liked in the West Wing, was looking at other jobs in the Trump administration, the source said.

“In an administration where, at times, messaging coordination was a lesser priority, Garrett was crucial in working to ensure the White House, Defense Department and State Department were on the same page publicly,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Trump has, meanwhile, defended his decision to sack Bolton, saying he made very big mistakes and was not going along with other members of the administration.

“He made some very big mistakes when he talked about the Libyan model for (the North Korean Leader) Kim Jong-un,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.

“That was not a good statement to make ... and it sets us back. That’s a question of being not smart, to say something like that,” Trump said.

Bolton’s remarks about the Libyan model of nuclear disarmament for North Korea was made over a year ago and a half ago but, Trump fired him on Tuesday amid controversy over a cancelled secret meeting between the US president and Taleban leaders.

He also slammed Bolton for being a “way out of line” on how to deal with the crisis in Venezuela, but he did not elaborate or give specific examples about their differences on this issue.

The US leader claimed that his former national advisor was not in harmony with other members of the administration.

“He did not get along with other people in the administration,” he said.

Trump said he was considering at least five highly qualified candidates to replace Bolton.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu played down the impact of hawkish John Bolton’s exit from the post of US national security adviser, predicting that Washington would hold to a tough line on Iran.

Netanyahu was among the most vocal champions of Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers and has voiced misgivings about Western engagement with Tehran unless this leads to sweeping restrictions on sensitive nuclear projects.

But Netanyahu, in an Israeli television interview, sounded unfazed by Bolton’s departure and possible Trump-Rouhani talks.

“Look, the one who formally crafted the American policy was Pompeo ... and President Trump of course. But I’m not getting into the personality changes in this administration,” he told Channel 20.

WASHINGTON, Sept 12, (Agencies): US President Donald Trump has left open the possibility that the United States could ease sanctions on Iran, adding he believes Iran wants to strike a deal with Washington on its nuclear program.

“We’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked about the possibility the United States would ease up on its “maximum pressure” campaign.

Trump’s firing of his hard-line national security adviser, John Bolton, on Tuesday prompted speculation that Washington’s policy toward adversaries such as Iran could ease.

Separately, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tehran would not negotiate with Washington while sanctions on his country are still being enforced by Washington.

Trump said it would be “very very dangerous” for Iran to enrich uranium, a key step in developing a nuclear weapon, and also said, “I do believe they’d like to make a deal.”

“If they do, that’s great. If they don’t, that’s great too,” he said. “They have tremendous financial difficulty and the sanctions are getting tougher and tougher.”

Trump and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have said the president is open to meeting with Rouhani, possibly at the United Nations General Assembly meeting later this month.

Asked if he was looking at such a meeting, Trump told reporters he was not looking at anything.

Meanwhile, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says Trump has no plans to meet with Rouhani while he’s in New York for the United Nations General Assembly later this month.

Mnuchin said Thursday that such a meeting is “not planned at the moment,” even though Trump has made clear “he would sit down with Rouhani with no condition” to discuss Iran’s nuclear program.

Mnuchin also insists that the recent departure of former national security adviser John Bolton will not dramatically change the Trump administration’s posture on Iran. He says he and Pompeo “have been executing the president’s maximum pressure campaign” so there’s no “sea change.”

Bolton was a hardliner on Iran who was skeptical of engagement.

Australia’s foreign minister said on Thursday her government is pressing Iran to free three Australian citizens from a Tehran prison and she did not believe their arrests were related to Iran’s current conflicts with the West.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne told the Senate that she had raised the arrests of two British-Australian women and an Australian man “many times” with her Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, while the Australian Embassy in Tehran had made “repeated representations to very senior Iranian officials” on the prisoners’ behalf.

Analysts and family members of dual nationals and others detained in Iran have long said hard-liners in the Islamic Republic’s security agencies use the prisoners as bargaining chips in negotiations with the West. A UN panel in 2018 described “an emerging pattern involving the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of dual nationals” in Iran, which Tehran denied.

Payne said she did not believe the arrests of Perth couple Mark Firkin and Jolie King, or the earlier arrest of a Melbourne academic, whose name has not been released, “relate to broader issues.”

“We have no reason to think that these arrests are connected to international concern over Iran’s nuclear program, United Nations sanctions or sanctions enforcement or maritime security and the safety of civilian shipping,” Payne said.

Britain and Australia last month signed onto a US-led maritime security mission to protect international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran’s recent seizures of vessels has raised tensions with the West.