ZCZC
BFF-32
US-IRAN-TALK-DIPLOMACY
US prepared to talk to Iran ‘with no preconditions’: Pompeo
BELLINZONA, Switzerland, June 2, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Washington is willing to speak with Iran “with no preconditions”, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday, but stressed his country would continue working to rein in Iran’s “malign activity”.
“We are prepared to engage in a conversation with no preconditions. We are ready to sit down with them,” Pompeo told a news conference in Switzerland.
But he stressed that “the American effort to fundamentally reverse the malign activity of this Islamic Republic, this revolutionary force, is going to continue.”
His comments marked the first time that President Donald Trump’s administration, which last year decided to withdraw from a hard-won 2015 nuclear neal between Tehran and world powers, has so clearly stated its willingness to open a no-strings-attached dialogue with Iran.
Pompeo himself last year laid out 12 draconian demands he said Iran would need to meet before reaching a “new deal” with the United States, essentially addressing every aspect of Iran’s missile program and what Washington calls its “malign influence” across the region.
Washington has since been locked in an increasingly tense standoff with Tehran, and has reimposed sanctions. In recent weeks it has also beefed up its military presence in the Middle East because of alleged Iranian “threats”.
But at the same time, Trump has over the past week toned down the rhetoric, saying Washington does not seek “regime change” in Iran and holding out the possibility of talks.
His Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani however stressed on Saturday that Tehran would not be “bullied” into negotiations with the United States, and would only sit down for talks if Washington showed it “respect”.
During Saturday’s joint news conference with his Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis, Pompeo meanwhile appeared to back-pedal on the offer he had just made to have condition-free talks with Iran, stating that the United States was “certainly prepared to have (a) conversation when the Iranians will prove they are behaving as a normal nation.”
BSS/AFP/MMA/1823HRS