Trump, Rouhani willing to meet
France
President Donald Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said yesterday that they were willing to meet, the first time the two have been on the same page at the same time about possible negotiations to resolve their escalating differences.
Trump agreed with French President Emmanuel Macron, who served as go-between, that the meeting could occur within weeks. ‘‘If the circumstances were correct, were right, I would certainly agree to that,’’ Trump said at a joint news conference with Macron at the end of the Group of Seven summit in Biarritz, France.
Rouhani, in a televised speech in Iran, said he was open to talks. ‘‘If I knew that going to a meeting and visiting a person would help my country’s development and resolve the problems of the people, I would not miss it,’’ he said, in an apparent reference to Trump.
‘‘We have to negotiate, we have to find a solution, and we have to solve the problem,’’ Rouhani said.
No date for a meeting was set. But when asked if Macron’s estimate of ‘‘within weeks’’ sounded realistic, Trump said, ‘‘It does.’’ He and Rouhani are scheduled to attend the UN General Assembly in New York during the last week of September.
Macron, who weeks ago was publicly chastised in a Trump tweet after rumours that he was working to set up a meeting, beamed at Trump’s side. ‘‘I want to be very cautious and very modest, but I think that this is going to lead to putting an end to escalation and reaching a suitable solution to this,’’ he said.
Trump last year abandoned the 2015 nuclear pact among world powers, which he said did not go far enough in curbing Iran’s nuclear energy program in exchange for sanctions relief. His administration has since imposed harsh economic sanctions that have brought the Iranian economy to its knees and the two countries to the brink of a military clash.
In recent months, Iran has breached certain provisions of the accord in a bid to persuade the other signatories – France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China, who remain in the agreement – to push back against the Americans, reset the terms of the deal and keep it afloat.
Iran wants to continue to sell oil, despite a US embargo that has drastically cut its exports. Much of the foreign investment promised under the deal has since dried up as foreign companies have left Iran to avoid being sanctioned.
As the two sides have edged closer to direct confrontation, the United States has accused Iran of mining oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and shot down what it said was a threatening Iranian drone. Iran then shot down a US drone and has threatened to shut the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial seaway through which much of the world’s oil travels from the Middle East.
Last year, when the administration voiced its interest in a meeting, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave a harsh speech forbidding any dialogue with the United States.
But now, ‘‘there is simply no way Iran can reverse its economic decline absent a deal with the United States,’’ said Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.