ISTANBUL — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Monday that he was open to talks amid an economic crisis at home and rising tensions with the West, a move that could set the stage for eventual negotiations with the United States.
Rouhani, a moderate, said Iran should use diplomacy to find solutions following the U.S. withdrawal last year from a landmark nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. The Trump administration has since imposed a raft of harsh sanctions.
“If I knew that going to a meeting and visiting a person would help my country’s development and resolve the problems of the people, I would not miss it,” Rouhani said in a televised speech, in what appeared to be a reference to President Trump.
“We have to negotiate, we have to find a solution, and we have to solve the problem,” the Iranian leader said.
[Iranian president warns Tehran will increase uranium enrichment ‘as much as we want’]
His remarks came after Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif made a surprise visit to the Group of Seven summit in the French seaside resort of Biarritz, at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron.
Trump, who was also at the summit, said Monday that he would meet with Rouhani “if the circumstances were correct.”
“But, in the meantime, they have to be good players,” the U.S. president said at a news conference.
Trump abandoned the 2015 nuclear pact, which curbed Iran’s atomic energy program in exchange for sanctions relief, saying the agreement did not go far enough in preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
In recent months, Iran has breached certain provisions of the accord in a bid to persuade the other signatories to reset the terms of the deal. Iran wants to continue to export oil, despite a U.S. embargo. Much of the foreign investment promised under the deal has since dried up.
[What Iran’s uranium enrichment increase actually means]
Rouhani said Iran would use both diplomacy and “power” to stand up to the United States and achieve its goals. He said Iran would “resist” its enemies when it “benefits us” but also appeared to admonish domestic critics of diplomacy, saying that both approaches were necessary.
“Those who think that only one of these instruments is enough are wrong,” he said, adding that Iran needed to use its “military, security, cultural and political powers” to stand up to the United States.
“What is important is the national interest,” Rouhani said, again turning to the prospect of talks.
Even when the chance is “20 percent or 10 percent, we should still try to move forward,” he said. “We should not miss the chance.”
Hard-line opponents of Rouhani’s administration criticized Zarif’s G-7 trip, portraying it as naive. Iran’s conservatives have long opposed negotiations with the United States, deeming it untrustworthy. They have grown emboldened in the year since Trump withdrew from the nuclear pact.
The ultraconservative Kayhan newspaper, which is linked to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme Leader, said Monday that Zarif’s meetings in Biarritz were set up to “deceive” Iran and that the French and U.S. leaders would ultimately seek stringent controls on its missile program and regional presence.
It denounced Iranian media coverage portraying Zarif as an equal partner at the G-7 summit, saying the only thing that he had in common with the other leaders in attendance was that they were in the same city.
Rouhani was first elected president in 2013 on promises that he would repair Iran’s relations with the West, and he pinned his presidency on the success of the nuclear agreement.
But the pact did not yield the expected economic benefits, and people’s daily lives did not improve.
“We will not get tired,” Rouhani said, acknowledging the effect of the renewed U.S. sanctions. “But we will enjoy the chance to stand on our own.”
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