US leaders remain ready to negotiate with their Iranian counterparts but Tehran is still refusing President Donald Trump’s overture to do so, a senior US official said Wednesday.
Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “have all made clear that we are ready to negotiate and to have those discussions,” Brian Hook, the US special representative for Iran, told the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank.
“There hasn’t been any aversion to meeting with the Iranians,” he added.
Hook stressed the goal was a “comprehensive deal” with Iran, based on a tough set of conditions Pompeo laid out in May.
The United States seeks a treaty ratified by Congress to replace the
nuclear pact Trump withdrew from in May.
Washington insists such a deal should address Iran’s ballistic weapons capabilities, its nuclear capacity and its “destabilizing” and “malign” regional influence.
According to Hook, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif “have all indicated that they’re not interested in talking. That’s their position, we respect that.”