Donald Trump has said he would “certainly meet” the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, without preconditions, a move that was later rejected by Trump’s own administration and senior Iranian figures.
Speaking during a joint news conference with Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, Trump said he would meet Iran “anytime they want to”. “I’ll meet with anybody,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with meeting.”
Asked whether he would set any preconditions, Trump was clear. “No preconditions, no. If they want to meet, I’ll meet any time they want,” he said. “Good for the country, good for them, good for us and good for the world. No preconditions. If they want to meet, I’ll meet.”
Trump’s apparently spontaneous overture marked a significant shift in tone and follows escalating rhetoric in the wake of his dumping in May of the landmark Iran nuclear accord.
The administration is set next month to begin reimposing sanctions that had been lifted under the 2015 deal and has been ratcheting up a pressure campaign on the Islamic republic that many suspect is aimed at regime change.
After the comment, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, appeared to contradict Trump, listing preconditions that had to be met first. He told CNBC on Monday: “If the Iranians demonstrate a commitment to make fundamental changes in how they treat their own people, reduce their malign behaviour, can agree that it’s worthwhile to enter in a nuclear agreement that actually prevents proliferation, then the president said he’s prepared to sit down and have a conversation with him,” he said.
Garrett Marquis, a spokesman for the president’s National Security Council, later said in a statement the US would not lift any sanctions or re-establish diplomatic and commercial relations until “there are tangible, demonstrated, and sustained shifts in Tehran’s policies”.
“Until then,” he said, “the sting of sanctions will only grow more painful if the regime does not change course.”
On Tuesday, the commander of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards dismissed Trump’s suggestion out of hand. “Mr Trump! Iran is not North Korea to accept your offer for a meeting,” Maj Gen Mohammad Ali Jafari was quoted as saying by Fars news agency. “Even US presidents after you will not see that day.”
Hamid Aboutalebi, one of Rouhani’s advisers, set his own conditions for any meeting with Trump, saying “respect for the great nation of Iran”, returning to the nuclear deal and a reduction in hostilities were needed first.
In a statement on his official website on Tuesday, Rouhani himself said that Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal was “illegal”, and that the ball was “in Europe’s court” in terms of maintaining ties with Tehran.
“The Islamic Republic has never sought tension in the region and does not want any trouble in global waterways, but it will not easily give up on its rights to export oil,” Rouhani said.
Trump has long cast himself as a master negotiator who is most effective when he meets his counterparts face-to-face. He pointed to his recent one-on-ones with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, as examples of the benefits of such get-togethers, though both drew bipartisan criticism and doubts about the tangible progress achieved.
Trump’s apparent openness towards Iran comes a week after he threatened the country with “consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before”, in a late-night, all capital-letter tweet.
Reaction to Trump’s latest offer was mixed among his critics in both parties on Capitol Hill, with Senator Dianne Feinstein saying: “I actually think that’s a good idea.”
It was “another recipe for bad outcomes”, said the Democrat Bob Menendez. “It’s the same as North Korea,” he said. “No preconditions, no preparation. And what do we have? We have Kim Jong-un elevated from an international pariah to someone who seems like a legitimate statesman.”
Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
