Iran’s top envoy scolds Trump for tweet, rules out new talks

NEWYORK » Iran’s top diplomat scolded President Donald Trump on Wednesday for a weekend tweet about a nonexistent Iranian missile launch and essentially ruled out renegotiating or launching follow-up talks to a landmark nuclear accord that Trump threatens to dismantle.

“We need to check our facts before we make statements,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It worries me that people play with facts and produce alternative facts.”

Healso criticized a recent independence referendum by Iraq’s Kurdish minority as “dangerous” to stability in a Middle East beset by efforts to defeat the Islamic State extremist group and civil wars in Syria and Yemen.

Zarif seemed to float the possibility of a prisoner exchange for several detained Americans in Iran, responding to a question about their fate by raising the situation of several Iranians held or being pursued by the United States for sanctions violations.