Iran Dismisses Trump’s Offer of Nuclear Talks as ‘Political Showboating’
Iran Dismisses Trump’s Offer of Nuclear Talks as ‘Political Showboating’
(Bloomberg) --
Iran dismissed President Donald Trump’s offer of a better deal with the U.S. over its nuclear program as “nothing but political showboating.”
“The U.S. government knows what to do to achieve any successful diplomacy with Iran,” Ali Rabiei, spokesman for Iran’s government, said in a televised news conference Monday. “They have to rebuild everything they have destroyed unilaterally.”
In a tweet last week celebrating the return of an American citizen imprisoned in Iran -- released as part of a swap deal with Washington -- Trump offered the prospect of an agreement if the Islamic Republic didn’t wait to negotiate until after this year’s U.S. presidential election.
The prisoner exchange represented a rare sign of diplomacy between Washington and Tehran as the U.S. continues to ramp up sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. Two years ago, the Trump administration abandoned the 2015 pact that world powers negotiated with the Islamic Republic.
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