US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday his country was ready to talk with Tehran “with no preconditions”, but there was no indication if lifting sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme was on the table.
The top US diplomat, who is considered a hawk on the Iran file, appeared to soften the US stance somewhat following weeks of escalating tensions with Tehran.
“We are prepared to engage in a conversation with no preconditions,” Pompeo said in Switzerland, which in the absence of US-Iranian diplomatic ties represents Washington’s interests in the Islamic Republic.
“We are ready to sit down with them,” Pompeo told a joint news conference with his Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis at the impressive medieval Castelgrande castle in Bellinzona, nestled in the Alps in Switzerland’s Italian-speaking Ticino region.
He was reacting to comments made by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday insisting that his country would not be “bullied” into talks with the United States, and that any dialogue between the two countries needed to be grounded in “respect”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also said in an interview with the American network ABC broadcast Sunday that it was “not very likely” that Tehran would agree to talks with the US any time soon.
US President Donald Trump, he said, “is imposing pressure.”
“This may work in a real estate market. It does not work in dealing with Iran,” he said, insisting that “threats against Iran never work… Try respect. That may work.”
Pompeo himself also appeared to back-pedal on the offer to have condition-free talks with Iran, stating that Washington was “certainly prepared to have (a) conversation when the Iranians will prove they are behaving as a normal nation.”