Trump, Pompeo give new priority to diplomacy with Iran
While many see a shift in tone rather than substance, the diplomatic channel seems to be heating up.
WASHINGTON — In a sign of President Donald Trump’s growing impatience with stalled nuclear diplomacy with Iran and North Korea, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo generated headlines when he offered Sunday to hold talks with Iran without any preconditions, even as he subsequently insisted that the position was not a new one.
“We’re prepared to engage in a conversation with no preconditions,” Pompeo told journalists at a press availability with Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis in Bellinzona, Switzerland, on Sunday. “We’re ready to sit down with them.”
Pompeo, asked in an interview today if that statement marks a change in policy, insisted that it does not.
“President Trump said well over a year ago that he was prepared to meet without any preconditions, [was] willing to talk to the Iranians about the full range of their malign activity, their missile program, their nuclear program,” Pompeo said in an interview with EuroNews today. “This is not a new statement.”
