No meet with US: Iran FM

GENEVA: Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Saturday there would be no meeting with the US in the near future following Washington’s reimposition of sanctions.

Asked by the conservative Tasnim news agency if there was a plan to meet US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Zarif said: “No, there will be no meeting.” He said there were no plans for a meeting with US officials on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York next month, which both Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his US counterpart Donald Trump will attend. “On Trump’s recent proposal (of talks), our official stance was announced by the President and by us. Americans are not honest and their addiction to sanctions does not allow any negotiation to take place,” Zarif said. Meanwhile, Trump said a trade deal with Mexico is “coming along nicely”. But he threatened Canada with auto tariffs if they can’t forge a deal. He appeared to be referring to efforts to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada in a tweet from his golf club in Bedminster, NJ. He said a deal with Mexico must take care of US autoworkers and farmers. He praised the new Mexican President, calling him “an absolute gentleman”. In far less-friendly message to Canada, he said, “Canada must wait.” The country’s “Tariffs and Trade Barriers are far too high” and is threatening to “tax cars if we can’t make a deal!”