Iran's Zarif says Trump demands on nuclear deal are unacceptable
Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Saturday (April 28) that demands by U.S President Donald Trump to change Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers were unacceptable.
Trump has said that unless European allies fix the "terrible flaws" in the Iran nuclear deal by May 12, he will refuse to extend U. sanctions relief for oil-producing Iran.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif will be discussing the Iran nuclear deal on Saturday. The meeting comes in the wake of the US and French threat to scrap the deal.
The meeting comes on the sidelines of an extraordinary trilateral meeting of Russian, Iranian and Turkish foreign ministers on April 28 in Moscow. The trilateral talks will primarily focus on Syria.
New US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said President Donald Trump has not taken a decision on whether to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal but was not likely to keep to it without substantial changes.
"There's been no decision, so the team is working and I am sure we will have lots of conversations to deliver what the president has made clear," Pompeo told a news conference after a NATO meeting of foreign ministers.
"Absent a substantial fix, absent overcoming the flaws of the deal, he is unlikely to stay in that deal," Pompeo said.
French President Macron and President Trump today discussed the Iran nuclear deal at the Oval office in the White House with both leaders keen to hammer out a "new deal".
Trump had earlier termed the Iran nuclear deal brokered by the previous Obama administration as a "terrible deal", "insane" and "ridiculous".