Donald Trump on Friday denied rumors he offered to lift sanctions on Iran in exchange for talks aimed at defusing an increasingly perilous standoff that threatens to manifest itself in open war between Saudi Arabia and the Shia power broker.
“Iran wanted me to lift the sanctions imposed on them in order to meet”, Trump said, between nearly a dozen paranoid impeachment tweets. “I said, of course, NO!”
After returning from the UN General Assembly in New York, Hassan Rouhani claimed that US officials offered to ease sanctions on the theocracy. “It was up for debate what sanctions will be lifted and they (the United States) had said clearly that we will lift all sanctions”, he claimed. The US this week banned Iranian officials and their immediate families from the country even as Rouhani and some 80 advisors were still in New York.
Read more: Trump Bans Iranian Officials From US
According to Rouhani, Iran declined the offer due to the “toxic” atmosphere.
“This action wasn’t in a manner that was acceptable, meaning that in the atmosphere of sanctions and the existence of sanctions, even if we want to negotiate with the Americans in the 5+1 framework, no one can predict what the end and result of this negotiation will be”, he said.
Earlier this month, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cited the Trump administration’s schizophrenic foreign policy in insisting that negotiations with the US aren’t possible.
“Sometimes they say negotiations without any precondition and sometimes with 12 conditions”, Khamenei quipped, adding that “such statements either come from their disheveled policies or are a ploy to confuse the other side”.
There’s more than a little concern that Trump, reeling from the Ukraine crisis, will lash out at foreign adversaries in an effort to deflect from what has quickly become the biggest scandal of his controversial presidency.
One can only hope any attempts to distract the public won’t entail chancing a military confrontation with the IRGC.
Read more: Hassan Rouhani Calls Trump An ‘International Pirate’ At UN, Says Mideast Is ‘On Edge Of Collapse’
