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Pompeo: US will talk to Iran if it acts like a ‘normal nation’ Iran: Pompeo offer of talks without pre-conditions is 'word play'
(about 7 hours later)
The US is prepared to engage with Iran about its nuclear program without pre-conditions but needs to see the country behaving like “a normal nation”, secretary of state Mike Pompeo said on Sunday. The US is prepared to engage with Iran without pre-conditions about its nuclear programme but needs to see the country behaving like “a normal nation”, secretary of state Mike Pompeo said on Sunday.
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani suggested on Saturday that Iran may be willing to hold talks if Washington shows it respect, but said Tehran would not be pressured into talks. Trump’s ‘hit them first’ diplomacy risks war – ex-UK minister
In an apparent softening of his previous stance, Pompeo said when asked about Rouhani’s remarks: “We are prepared … to engage in conversations with no pre-conditions, we are ready to sit down.” Iran dismissed the offer as “word play”.
However, he said Washington would continue to work to “reverse the malign activity” of Iran in the Middle East. Tension between the two foes has increased sharply in the past month, a year after Donald Trump abandoned Iran’s 2015 deal with world powers to curb Tehran’s nuclear programme in return for the lifting of sanctions.
Pompeo said Donald Trump had been saying for a long time he was willing to talk to Iran. Washington, which reimposed sanctions last year, has sharply tightened them since the start of May, ordering all countries to halt imports of Iranian oil. It has hinted at military confrontation, sending extra forces to the region in response to what it calls Iranian threats.
“We are certainly prepared to have that conversation when the Iranians can prove that they want to behave like a normal nation,” Pompeo said at a joint news conference with his Swiss counterpart in the southern Swiss city of Bellinzona. The other side that left the negotiating table and breached a treaty should return to normal state
Trump said last Monday he was hopeful Iran would come to the negotiating table. But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday Tehran would not negotiate with Washington, even after Rouhani had previously signalled talks might be possible if sanctions were lifted. Iran has responded by saying it could increase its production of enriched uranium beyond levels permitted under the deal, although it has not yet done so.
Last year, Pompeo outlined 12 ways Iran must change – including stopping its support for proxy groups and halting its missile program – before the US lifts sanctions. Asked about comments by President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday that Iran might be willing to hold talks if Washington showed it respect, Pompeo said: “We are prepared to engage in a conversation with no pre-conditions. We are ready to sit down.”
He also called on Iran to stop uranium enrichment, never to pursue plutonium reprocessing and to close its heavy water reactor. He said it also had to declare all previous military dimensions of its nuclear program and to permanently and verifiably abandon such work. But he said Washington would continue to work to “reverse the malign activity” of Iran in the Middle East, citing Tehran’s support to Hezbollah and to the Syrian government.
Pompeo said Trump had been saying for a long time that he was willing to talk to Iran.
“We are certainly prepared to have that conversation when the Iranians can prove that they want to behave like a normal nation,” he told a joint news conference with his Swiss counterpart, Ignazio Cassis.
The state department later pointed to remarks Trump had made nearly a year ago in which he said he was willing to hold talks with Iran without conditions.
Responding to Pompeo’s latest remarks, Rouhani said it was up to the US to return to the negotiating table and resume compliance with the 2015 deal.
“The other side that left the negotiating table and breached a treaty should return to normal state,” he said in comments reported on the government website.
He presented the offer of talks with no pre-conditions as a sign of Iran’s strength: “The enemies sometimes say they have conditions for negotiations with Iran … but in recent weeks they said they have no conditions. They threatened us as if they were a military superpower, but now they say they do not seek a war.”
Iran foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said: “The Islamic Republic of Iran does not pay attention to word-play and expression of hidden agenda in new forms.”
Both sides have made seemingly conflicting remarks about the possibility of talks in recent weeks, while saying it was up to the other side to make the first move. Rouhani had suggested on Saturday that Iran might be willing to hold talks if Washington showed it respect, but said Tehran would not be pressured into talks.
The Trump administration argues that the 2015 deal agreed by Barack Obama is not strong enough, and that Iran can be pressed by new sanctions into signing a tougher deal.
Washington’s European allies say the decision to abandon the agreement was a mistake which strengthens Iranian hardliners at the expense of Rouhani, a pragmatist who won two landslide elections on promises to open Iran up to the world.
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Trump said last Monday he was hopeful Iran would come to the negotiating table. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday Tehran would not negotiate with Washington.
Khamenei, a hardline cleric in power since 1989, is Iran’s ultimate authority although the elected president is in charge of day-to-day affairs.
In an interview that aired Sunday on ABC’s This Week, foreign minister Javad Zarif saw little chance of taking up Trump’s offer, and said Trump’s tough negotiating techniques from his real estate career would fail in diplomacy.
“It’s not very likely because talking is the continuation of the process of pressure. He is imposing pressure,” Zarif said. “This may work in the real estate market. It does not work in dealing with Iran.”
A quarterly report by the United Nations atomic watchdog indicated on Friday that Iran was still abiding by the main limits set in the nuclear deal. Pompeo said Washington has its own “independent understanding of what is taking place there”.
Mike PompeoMike Pompeo
Trump administrationTrump administration
Iran nuclear dealIran nuclear deal
IranIran
Hassan RouhaniHassan Rouhani
Donald TrumpDonald Trump
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