Tue Oct 1, 2019 07:38AM [Updated: Tue Oct 1, 2019 08:16AM ]
French President Emmanuel Macron (L) and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speak at the United Nations headquarters on September 23, 2019, in New York. (Photo by AFP)
French President Emmanuel Macron (L) and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speak at the United Nations headquarters on September 23, 2019, in New York. (Photo by AFP)
In New York, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran refused to engage in a phone conversation with his American counterpart, Donald Trump, which had been secretly arranged by French President Emmanuel Macron, leaving Trump waiting on the line, US media reports say.
The New Yorker magazine reported on Monday that Macron had tried to engineer a three-way conversation by having technicians set up a secure line in a meeting room on Rouhani’s floor at the Millennium Hilton Hotel across the road from the UN General Assembly (UNGA), on September 24 evening.
The French leader, it added, hoped that the telephone conversation would lay the groundwork for the first meeting between an American president and an Iranian president since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Sources familiar with last Tuesday’s events said, “The call to Trump’s line came through at 9:30. Macron took the call. But Rouhani never emerged from his room.”
“As we have been doing for several months, we worked in New York to get Iran to make new commitments and for the US, in exchange, to ease sanctions,” a French diplomat told The New Yorker. “We made technical arrangements in the event that a telephone call could take place. That call did not take place.”
Later on Monday, The New York Times confirmed the report, saying that Rouhani had left Trump hanging and Macron waiting outside his hotel suite.
“The telephone line had been secretly set up. President Trump waited on the other end. All President Hassan Rouhani of Iran had to do was come out of his hotel suite and walk into a secure room where Mr. Trump’s voice would be piped in via speaker,” it said.
According to three people with knowledge of the developments, Macron, accompanied by a small team of advisers, “awaited an answer” outside Rouhani’s suite.
“Messages were passed between them via Mr. Rouhani’s aides,” they said. “In the end, Mr. Rouhani refused even to come out of his room. Mr. Macron left empty-handed and Mr. Trump was left hanging.”
Macron has been seeking to play a mediatory role aimed at easing Washington-Tehran tensions, which have been on the rise since the US withdrawal from a 2015 multilateral nuclear deal in May 2018.
The French leader has also been leading European efforts to save the accord, whose fate remains in doubt since Washington’s exit.
Iran has repeatedly rejected Trump’s offer of talks, saying it would not engage in such negotiations unless the US returns to the deal and lifts its unilateral sanctions.
Tehran says negotiations with Washington would be possible within the framework of the P5+1, comprising the US, France, Britain, Russia, China plus Germany, which successfully negotiated the deal with Iran, if Washington meets those conditions.
PressTV-‘No talks with US unless bans lifted, Iran rights respected’
PressTV-‘No talks with US unless bans lifted, Iran rights respected’
President Rouhani says the US should lift all its “cruel” and “unlawful” sanctions against Iran and begin respecting the nation’s rights as a “first step” towards talks.
In a speech at the General Assembly on Wednesday, Rouhani reaffirmed Iran’s position and said he was not interested in a “memento photo” with Trump on the sidelines of the UN meetings, while the US was piling economic pressure on Iran.
“Memento photos are the final stage of negotiations, not the first one,” Rouhani told the world body.
In 2013, Rouhani and then US president Barack Obama held a telephone conversation as the Iranian president was wrapping up his visit to New York for the 68th annual session of the UNGA, as diplomatic efforts were underway between the two sides within the P5+1 format in the run-up to the nuclear deal.
The New York Times cited Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a political-risk consulting firm in Washington, as saying that Trump’s desire for negotiations with Iran was meant to “flip the news cycle” from the Ukraine scandal.
“Trump really wants a foreign policy win and can’t find one,” he said. “He thinks talks with Iran now may be his best shot.”
Trump “was especially desperate at the UNGA — he wanted to flip the news cycle from Ukraine and Biden to a dramatic meeting with Rouhani,” he added.
The US president is facing an impeachment inquiry related to allegations that he pressured Ukraine to smear his top Democratic political rival Joe Biden.
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Saudi Arabia gave Iraq green light to arrange meeting with Iran: Iraqi official
Wed Oct 2, 2019 06:48AM [Updated: Wed Oct 2, 2019 07:20AM ]
The photo released by the Saudi Royal Court showing Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi (L) meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, September 25, 2019. (Via Reuters)
The photo released by the Saudi Royal Court showing Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi (L) meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, September 25, 2019. (Via Reuters)
An Iraqi official says Saudi Arabia has agreed that Iraq’s Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi help set the stage for a meeting with Iran.
“The Saudis have given the green light in this matter, and Mr. Abdul-Mahdi is working on it,” Abbas al-Hasnawi, an official in the Iraqi premier’s office, told the Middle East Eye (MEE) news portal on Tuesday.
He also noted that the Iraqi prime minister had been mediating between Riyadh and Tehran in a bid to ease tensions in the region, and that he had communicated the conditions of both sides for negotiations.
“The Iraqi leadership has channels with both sides. Our Sunni brothers [in the government] liaise with the Saudis and our Shia brothers with the Iranians,” Hasnawi said.
“The Saudis have conditions before the negotiations process starts and the same with Iranians. We have liaised these conditions to each side. It is not an easy task to get together two opposite sides in terms of their ideology, sect and their alliances in the region,” he added.
The spokesman for the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's administration says Saudi leaders have sent messages to Iran's president through a head of state.
The official further said that Abdul-Mahdi was hoping to host a meeting between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Baghdad under the supervision of the Iraqi government, stressing, however, that a location had yet to be agreed.
“Baghdad is the best place for this meeting, but I can’t confirm it will be. In the beginning, there will be meetings between officials of both countries, and then a deal will be made. Leaders of Saudi Arabia and Iran will meet to sign it,” he said.
Last week, Abdul-Mahdi held talks with Saudi officials during a visit to Jeddah. After the trip, the Iraqi premier told Al Jazeera that Saudi Arabia was looking to de-escalate tensions with Iran.
Hasnawi further said the Americans “have no problem” with a potential deal in the region, adding that Iraq’s National Security Adviser Falih Alfayyadh is currently in Washington to discuss a timeline for a Saudi-Iran meeting.
He also confirmed that Saudi Arabia, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, had “calmed their rhetoric” in recent days, warning of the consequences of a new regional conflict.
“The region can’t withstand another conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, it is a hazardous region, and it is rich with crude oil, essential to the whole world,” he said.
Iran has rejected again claims of involvement in Yemen's retaliatory attacks on the kingdom's heart of oil industry, saying Riyadh's offensive in Hudaydah in breach of a UN truce speaks for itself.
The remarks came amid heightened tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia over the latter’s baseless accusations against Iran over the September 14 air raids on two Aramco installations, which were claimed by Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement.
However, in an apparent break with his trademark bellicose rhetoric, bin Salman on Sunday called for a “peaceful” settlement with Tehran and warned that a war with Iran would lead to a “total collapse of the global economy.”
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) has warned that war with Iran will entail a “total collapse of the global economy”.
On Tuesday, Iran’s Parliament speaker Ali Larijani told he Doha-based Al Jazeera broadcaster that Tehran welcomed the Saudi crown prince’s apparent willingness to talk.
“We welcome Mohammed bin Salman being quoted as saying he wants to resolve issues through talks with Tehran,” Larijani said.
Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei confirmed on Monday that Saudi leaders had been sending messages to Iran’s president through a head of state.
However, Adel al-Jubeir, the kingdom’s minister of state for foreign affairs, said Wednesday that Rabiei’s remarks were “not accurate.”
“What happened was that sister countries sought to calm the situation, and we told them that the position of the kingdom was to always seek security and stability in the region,” he added.
