Rebuking Trump, French FM defends Iran mediation efforts
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian directly rebukes Trump and insists France will continue "mediation efforts" with Iran "to avert a wider conflict."
France’s top diplomat on Friday defended his nation’s efforts to reduce tensions with Iran, a day after US President Donald Trump took to Twitter to say the French president doesn’t speak for the United States on Iran.
Analysts said Trump’s comments could reflect efforts by Trump’s hawkish advisers to undermine French mediation efforts to try to reduce friction in the Persian Gulf and get Iran to reverse recent steps to reduce compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.
French President Emmanuel Macron had been expected to present Trump with a potential package to de-escalate tensions with Iran on the sidelines of the G-7 summit that Macron is due to host in Biarritz, France, August 24-26, said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran program at the International Crisis Group.
“My sense is that this is most probably another attempt by the president’s national security team to sabotage another mediation effort which has the potential to de-escalate tensions between Iran and the US,” Vaez told Al-Monitor, recalling that the US announced new petrochemical sanctions on Iran just before Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe traveled to Iran in June with a message from Trump, “basically burning that initiative before it even began,” Vaez said.
