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All in News
◢ EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini gave a cautious welcome to the idea of negotiations, after Trump said Monday he was ready to meet Iran's President Hassan Rouhani within weeks. "We are always in favor of talks, the more people talk, the more people understand each other better, on the basis of clarity and on the basis of respect," Mogherini said as she arrived for the Helsinki meeting.
◢ US Defense Secretary Mark Esper urged Iran Wednesday to enter discussions with the United States in order to ease tensions in the Persian Gulf region. "We are not seeking conflict with Iran. We want to engage with them diplomatically," Esper said in his first formal press conference after being confirmed last month.
◢ Iran is sending a delegation to France next week after progress was made in talks to defuse tensions since the US withdrew from a landmark nuclear deal, a senior official said Wednesday. “A delegation is going to France next week and they will negotiate... issues," said Mahmoud Vaezi, the chief of staff of Iran's President Hassan Rouhani.
◢ Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in New York next month as Tokyo continues to seek a leading role in attempts to defuse rising tension in the Middle East. Japan's foreign ministry said Wednesday the meeting was arranged during Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif's visit to Tokyo.
◢ President Hassan Rouhani Tuesday told the United States to "take the first step" by lifting all sanctions against Iran, a day after US President Donald Trump said he was open to meeting. Trump said on Monday he was ready to meet with his Iranian counterpart within weeks, in a potential breakthrough reached during a G7 summit in the French seaside resort of Biarritz.
◢ US President Donald Trump said he believed it was realistic he could meet his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani within weeks, following a series of diplomatic initiatives by France. Asked by reporters if he thought the timeline proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron was realistic, Trump said: "It does", adding he thought Rouhani would also be in favor.
◢ Iran said it sold an oil cargo on board a contested tanker sailing the Mediterranean Sea but didn’t know where the vessel was going amid U.S. efforts to block delivery of the crude. The Adrian Darya 1, the tanker that the U.S. sought to seize in Gibraltar last week, was sailing more than halfway into the Mediterranean Sea on Monday without declaring any destination.
◢ Iran's President Hassan Rouhani came out strongly in favor of talks Monday as his top diplomat came under fire from ultra-conservative media for a surprise visit to a G7 summit. "I believe that for our country's national interests we must use any tool," Rouhani said in a speech aired live on state television.
◢ Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif kicked off his Asian tour in Beijing Monday, presenting a 25-year plan to cement Iran's ties with its biggest Asian trading partner amid biting US sanctions. Zarif's Asian tour—which also includes stopovers in Japan and Malaysia—comes fresh on the heels of a surprise visit to the G7 summit in France over the weekend.
◢ US President Donald Trump said Monday that he had agreed to the Iranian foreign minister flying in for a G7 summit and insisted he was not seeking regime change in Tehran—a change of tone that could lower tensions. "I knew everything he (Macron) was doing and I approved everything he was doing," Trump said, adding that the French president "asked for my approval,”
◢ A top Iranian official paid an unannounced visit Sunday to the G-7 summit and headed straight to the building where leaders of the world's major democracies have been debating how to handle the country's nuclear ambitions. The surprise arrival of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif came just two days after his meeting with France's president, who is the host of the Group of Seven gathering in Biarritz.
◢ French President Emmanuel Macron pitched U.S. President Donald Trump on a plan to end the standoff over the Iran nuclear deal—by allowing Iran to sell oil for a limited period of time in exchange for returning to talks and to compliance with the agreement. A senior U.S. official termed the plan a non-starter.
◢ President Donald Trump wants America’s closest allies to ratchet up the pressure on Iran. But this weekend in France he’ll find they’re still reluctant to join him. Divisions over Iran will be on full display when Trump meets his European peers at a Group of Seven meeting starting Saturday in the coastal city of Biarritz.
◢ French President Emmanuel Macron was to hold talks Friday with Iran's foreign minister ahead of a G7 meeting where he will attempt to soothe tensions between Tehran and Washington at what risks being a stormy summit. "We're at a critical moment," Macron warned on Wednesday, acknowledging that Iran is "laying out a strategy for exiting the JCPOA," the name of the 2015 accord reining in the country's nuclear ambitions.
◢ President Emmanuel Macron will on Friday hold talks on Iran's contested nuclear program with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, the French presidency said, in a rare encounter between a Western head of state and a senior Iranian official. Macron will meet Zarif just one day before France chairs a three-day summit of leaders of Group of Seven (G7) countries, including President Donald Trump, in the southern resort of Biarritz.
◢ The US urged the United Nations Tuesday to extend an arms embargo on Tehran that is due to expire next year as part of the embattled Iran nuclear deal. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the UN Security Council that the clock was ticking on a resolution restricting weapons sales to Iran that is due to end in October 2020.
◢ Iran is about to burn a lot more fuel oil as a result of U.S. sanctions and new global shipping rules, reversing the nation’s progress in switching to cleaner-burning natural gas. Power plants and other industrial facilities will burn more than 200,000 barrels a day of highly polluting fuel oil next year, double the amount Iran used in 2018.
◢ Iran warned the U.S. against apprehending a supertanker carrying the Middle East country’s oil and said it couldn’t be clear on the ship’s ultimate destination, leaving the fate of the vessel uncertain as it sailed into the Mediterranean Sea from Gibraltar, where it had been detained.
◢ The Government of Gibraltar says European Union regulations don’t allow it to seek a court order to seize a tanker which the U.S. accuses of breaching its sanctions by exporting Iranian oil. Grace 1, now renamed Adrian Darya, changed its intended destination on Monday to the Greek port of Kalamata and has now departed Gibraltar.
◢ Iranian officials on Friday denied that any assurances were given to Gibraltar to release an Iranian tanker now sailing on into the Mediterranean, calling it a "victory" for Tehran. "Iran has given no assurances over the Grace 1 not going to Syria to secure its release," the state broadcaster's youth website quoted foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi as saying Friday.
