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A senior diplomat was cited as adding, however, that Iran had not changed its level of cooperation and IAEA inspectors were able to visit all the locations in the country they needed to.
2.4 Rouhani backpedals on idea of Iran nuclear deal meeting with Trump
A day after indicating Iran might lower its conditions for a nuclear deal meeting with Donald Trump, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on August 27 backpedalled and returned to Tehran’s previous position that the US must lift sanctions on the Islamic Republic if it wants to negotiate.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, meanwhile, on a visit to China and Japan, said that “a meeting between Iran’s president and Trump is unimaginable”.
The observer might wonder if Iran’s quick retreat on opening up the possibility of a meeting with the US president is an example of what Zarif on August 21 warned would be Tehran acting “unpredictably” in response to the “unpredictable” policies of Trump. “Mutual unpredictability will lead to chaos. President Trump cannot expect to be unpredictable and expect others to be predictable. Unpredictability will lead to mutual unpredictability and unpredictability is chaotic,” Zarif said in a speech given at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
As the weekend G7 concluded in Biarritz, France, Trump not only said he could meet with Rouhani if the circumstances were right, he showed some openness to the idea of allowing Tehran to use some of its oil wealth to access credit.
But that does not seem to have softened attitudes in Tehran to the idea of meeting with an American president who is seen as inflicting a crushing “economic war” on Iranians.
“Unfortunately Europeans need some permits from the US to take measures and fulfil their [nuclear deal] commitments,” Zarif said in comments reported by state-run IRNA news agency. “This situation where independent countries need to obtain permits from other countries for taking legal measures does not offer a suitable prospect for the future of international relations.”
Trump and Rouhani are both due to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September.
2.5 Incident on Russia-Estonia border indicates Iranians seizing on new ‘back-door’ route into EU
Iranian people smugglers appear to be increasingly using the porous border between the Baltic states and Russia to provide a new ‘back-door’ route into the European Union.
An incident that took place on August 23 marked the latest known attempt by
8 IRAN Country Report September 2019 www.intellinews.com