Rejected lifting sanctions

Trump says he rejected lifting sanctions on Iran to meet with its president

By CAITLIN OPRYSKO

President Donald Trump on Friday denied that the U.S. had offered to lift sanctions on Iran to clear the way for a meeting with President Hassan Rouhani at the United Nations this week.

Trump appeared to be referencing reports that Rouhani claimed the U.S. agreed to lift the punishing sanctions it’s leveled against Tehran in order to arrange a meeting between the two leaders at the U.N. General Assembly.

In a post on Rouhani’s website, the president reportedly pushed back on the insinuation that Iran was being too stubborn, saying that the leaders of Germany, the U.K. and France “all insisted for the meeting to be held, saying that the US would lift all sanctions.”

But Trump rejected Rouhani’s claims, writing in a tweet that “I said, of course, NO!” to their conditions of sanction relief, reiterating his public stance for the last several weeks that lifting sanctions as a precondition for a meeting was out of the question.

The will-they-won’t-they dynamic was set to be one of the biggest narratives out of the annual gathering of leaders in New York, but the start of an impeachment inquiry into Trump quickly overshadowed any potential meeting between the two leaders. French President Emmanuel Macron was among those pushing hardest for Trump and Rouhani to meet, but both leaders shut down the proposal prior to heading to New York.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington have risen dramatically over the last year, with Iran lashing out in response to Trump's decision to withdraw from a 2015 nuclear deal and leaving many fearing a potential military conflict in the region. Trump showed an openness to meeting with Rouhani, first declaring that he would require no preconditions for such talks but later walking that proclamation back.

In the most recent provocation, the U.S. and other allies blamed Iran for a series of drone attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure that harmed the global oil leader's production. Trump has declined to take any military action thus far, instead hitting Tehran with a fresh round of sanctions targeting its central bank.

Reuters quoted Rouhani, citing his official website, telling reporters after returning to Iran from the United Nations General Assembly this week that “it was up for debate what sanctions will be lifted and they (the United States) had said clearly that we will lift all sanctions” in order to secure a meeting between the two leaders.

“They had sent messages to almost all European and no-European leaders that they wanted one-to-one negotiations between the two Presidents, but we had rejected it,” Rouhani claimed, saying that he’d asked for negotiations to include the six members of the U.N. Security Council, claiming “they accepted.”

But, he’d argued, “the problem here is that under sanctions and maximum pressure, even if we want to negotiate with the Americans within the framework of P5+1, nobody can predict about the end and upshot of the negotiation.”