New Delhi:
Hinting towards a prospective meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, US President Donald Trump on Thursday said he believes that Iran’s leadership wants a meeting. Trump added to the expectations that he is trying to arrange a summit with Iranian president Hassan Rouhani at the upcoming UN assembly. Trump has repeatedly indicated that he is ready to meet Rouhani. However, no positive response from Iran has come so far.
“I can tell you that Iran wants to meet,” he told reporters at the White House.
Asked earlier at the White House whether he might meet with the Iranian leader at the United Nations, Trump responded, “Sure, anything is possible.”
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that Trump is ready to meet his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani without preconditions while maintaining “maximum pressure” on Tehran.
Moreover, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani had said that Iran will announce a new step in scaling back its nuclear commitments despite a diplomatic push for relief from US sanctions. Iran and three European countries—Britain, France and Germany—have been engaged in talks to save a 2015 nuclear deal. The efforts have been led by French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been trying to convince the US to offer Iran some sort of relief from crippling sanctions it has reimposed on the Islamic republic since its pullout.
Last year, US President Donald Trump pulled the US out of an international accord designed to curb Iran’s nuclear program and has reimposed sanctions on Iran in an effort to force it to renegotiate the agreement.
(With PTI inputs)
