BIARRITZ, France:Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif flew into Biarritz insouthwestern France for the G7 summit yesterday in an unexpected and dramaticattempt to break a diplomatic deadlock over Tehran's disputed nuclear program.Zarif's presence had not been announced and represented a risky attempt byFrench host Emmanuel Macron to find a way to soothe spiraling tensions betweenIran and the United States. He was not expected to hold face-to-face talks withUS President Donald Trump, but the presence of the two men in the same placesparked hopes of a detente.
Before he leftBiarritz, Zarif said he held talks with Macron, while the French presidencyhailed 'positive' talks with the top Iranian diplomat. Zarif wrote on Twitterhe had met Macron after talks with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drianand also gave a briefing for British and German officials. "Road ahead isdifficult. But worth trying," he said.
Zarif will"continue talks regarding the recent measures between the presidents ofIran and France," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi earliertweeted, after flight tracking sites spotted that Zarif's plane had landed inBiarritz. Zarif went straight into talks with his French counterpart to assesswhat conditions could lead to a de-escalation of tension between Tehran andWashington, a French official said.
The Frenchpresidency had confirmed his arrival, but emphasized no talks were planned withthe American side. A French diplomat also suggested - without confirming - thatTrump had been made aware of the arrival during an impromptu two-hour lunchwith Macron on a hotel terrace on Saturday. "We work with fulltransparency with the Americans," the diplomat told reporters on conditionof anonymity. Also speaking in Biarritz, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchinsaid that Trump had in the past said that if Iran "wants to sit down andnegotiate he will not set preconditions". Macron held talks with Zarif inParis on the eve of the G7 summit and has been leading efforts to bring Tehranand Washington back to the negotiating table.
Trump's policy ofapplying "maximum pressure" on Tehran via crippling sanctions hasbeen criticized by European powers and is seen as raising the risk of conflictin the Middle East. Macron has urged the US administration to offer some sortof relief to Iran, such as lifting sanctions on oil sales to China and India,or a new credit line to enable exports. "To start this approach we need PresidentTrump to agree with the idea that we need to make a pause (in the "maximumpressure" policy)," a French diplomat told reporters last week. Thisis seen as a first step to get Iran back to the negotiating table, which couldthen lead to a new international agreement to limit its nuclear program.
Speaking to AFPlast week, Zarif said that Macron's suggestions were "moving in the rightdirection, although we are not definitely there yet". Last year, Trumpunilaterally pulled the US out of a landmark deal, of which Zarif had been akey architect, on the nuclear program reached in 2015 between Iran, the US,European powers, Russia and China.
Trump proclaimedyesterday that the G7 summit was going "beautifully", but there wasno masking over cracks between the US president and his allies on many issues.Leaders of the G7 countries -Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan andthe United States - put on a united front as they spent a second day in thehigh-end French surfing town of Biarritz. Trump arrived in Biarritz fresh fromhaving drastically upped the ante in the trade war with China.
European leaderslined up to press for caution and yesterday Trump gave a glimmer of hope thathe was reconsidering his all-or-nothing approach to the dispute between theworld's two biggest economies. Asked whether he was having second thoughtsabout the trade war, Trump, in a rare moment of public self-doubt, replied:"I have second thoughts about everything." Then in an extraordinaryturnaround, Trump's spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said just hours later thatthe president had been misunderstood. He did have regrets, she said, but notwhat everyone thought. "He regrets not raising the tariffs higher,"she explained.
At a breakfastmeeting, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson became the latest of the G7partners to urge Trump to step back from a trade war that critics fear couldtip the world economy into recession. "Just to register a faint,sheep-like note of our view on the trade war - we are in favor of trade peaceon the whole," Johnson told Trump.
The meeting withJohnson, who is sometimes compared to a British version of the populist,nationalist Trump, underlined the White House's dislike for the powerfulEuropean Union. Trump has repeatedly threatened the EU with trade wars andright before his departure from Washington he warned that he would slap wineimport tariffs on France if Macron does not retreat on a tax against US techgiants.
The jovialbreakfast with Johnson, who is trying to steer the Brexit process takingBritain out of the EU, emphasized that budding new alliance. Predicting thatJohnson would manage to untangle the mess of Brexit, Trump described intypically undiplomatic terms the EU as "an anchor around theirankle". The 73-year-old US leader then promised Johnson a "very bigtrade deal, bigger than we've ever had." - Agencies