Brink of World War 3? Iran ‘delivers brutal Trump’ snub as Middle East tensions escalate
TENSIONS between the US and Iran are threatening to boil over after White House officials were forced to deny Donald Trump requested an unprecedented face-to-face meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani – before being snubbed.
By SIMON OSBORNE
Express.co.uk
Mon, Oct 30, 2017
Iranian state television said Trump administration staff approached the Iranian delegation with a request for the meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi then appeared to confirm contact had been made during last month’s global get-together.
He said: “A request indeed was made by the US side but it wasn’t accepted by President Rouhani.”
The White House was quick to dismiss the Iranian official’s account as “false” but refused to elaborate further.
The alleged approach took place a day after Mr Trump delivered a fiery speech at the UN General Assembly in which he denounced Iran as a state-sponsor of terror.
He described the Mr Rouhani regime as a “corrupt dictatorship” which spreads violence across the Middle East in extraordinary rhetoric which many saw as a closer step toward the pulling out of the Iranian nuclear deal brokered under Barack Obama.
Mr Trump later refused to certify the 2015 nuclear agreement which he said Iran had violated multiple times and asked Congress to consider tough new sanctions on Tehran.
But he stopped short of totally scrapping the multinational accord designed to curb Iran’s nuclear program.
A defiant Mr Rouhani vowed Iran would continue with its nuclear programme, insisting it had fulfilled its obligations on the nuclear issue and had the right to defend itself.
He said: “We will build, produce and store any weapon of any kind we need to defend ourselves, our territorial integrity and our nation, and we will not hesitate about it.
“Understand that we have been building missiles, and will continue to do so and this does not contradict any of international laws and it is not in conflict with Resolution 2231.
“We will continue to defend our national interests and security with all our might, and the enemies should know that violation of any agreement will be detrimental to them, and the Islamic Republic of Iran will give them a decisive answer.”
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