BIARRITZ, France, Aug 26, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – US President Donald Trump said
Monday that it was “too early” to meet Tehran’s top diplomat, who made a
surprise weekend visit to the G7 summit, but insisted that Washington was not
looking for regime change in Iran.
“It’s too soon to meet, I didn’t want to,” Trump told reporters at the
summit, saying he knew that Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was going
to drop in for unscheduled talks.
“I knew he was coming,” Trump said of the visit, which was engineered by
France’s Emmanuel Macron in a bid to break the diplomatic deadlock over
Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme.
“I knew everything he (Macron) was doing and I approved everything he was
doing,” Trump said, adding the French president “asked for my approval”.
A landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Western powers and Iran all but
collapsed after Trump unilaterally withdrew US support last year, reimposing
sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy.
Macron has been trying for months to defuse the tensions between Tehran
and Washington by finding ways of resuming dialogue, and held talks with
Zarif in Paris on the eve of the summit.
Trump insisted that Washington was interested only in curbing Iran’s
nuclear ambitions.
“We’re not looking for regime change. You see how that works (in other
places),” he said. “What we want is very simple… non-nuclear.”