Section:GDN 1N PaGe:7 Edition Date:190827 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 26/8/2019 20:58 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
Tuesday 27 August 2019 The Guardian •
7Julian BorgerA French diplomatic initiative could
lead to a summit between the US
and Iranian presidents “within a few
weeks”, Emmanuel Macron said at a
press conference with Donald Trump
at the end of the G7 summit in Biarritz.
The French president pointed to
remarks from the Iranian president,
Hassan Rouhani, earlier yesterday,
expressing willingness to meet any-
one if it was in the national interest.
Trump said he would be ready to
meet if the conditions were right. He
did not specify what those conditions
would be, but agreed it would be real-
istic to expect a meeting within weeks.
The Iranian and US presidents are both
due to attend the UN general assembly
in New York next month.
Macron said the possibility of a US-
Iranian summit was the consequence
of a French diplomatic initiative aimed
at defusing rising tensions after
Trump’s decision last year to leave a
multilateral nuclear deal with Iran.
He did not give details of the
negotiations, but French offi cials said
they involved a partial rollback of US
sanctions and full Iranian compliance
with the 2015 deal in order to pave the
way for a resumption of high level US-
Iranian diplomacy.
Macron said the Iranian foreign
minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif ,
fl ew to Paris on Friday to set out Iran’s
negotiating position. After speaking
to Trump and the other G7 leaders
at a dinner on Saturday , the French
president decided there was enough
convergence to invite Zarif to Biarritz
for more talks.
“Through this coordination we took
an initiative yesterday to bring back
the Iranian foreign minister, and many
exchanges with the French ministers,
which has allowed us to sketch a path,”
Macron said. “Nothing is certain and it
is still extremely fragile, but there have
been discussions on a technical level
with some real progress.”Tom McCarthy
New YorkDonald Trump yesterday off ered his
Miami golf resort as the host of next
year’s G7 summit, extolling the virtues
of its amenities while insisting that he
did not stand to profi t.
The US president said his team had
surveyed a number of possible sites
but settled on the Trump NationalHe said he had told Rouhani that if
he agreed to meet Trump he believed
“an agreement can be found” and said
Rouhani had reacted positively.
The Iranian president said
yesterday: “If I know that meeting
with a person will resolve the prob-
lem of my country, I will not hesitate
because national interests are the main
principle.”
Macron said: “We know the terms
and the goals. But now you have to sit
around the table and get there. ”
The French president said he had
kept his US counterpart fully informed
about his invitation to Zarif and the
outcome of the talks with him in
Biarritz on Sunday.
Asked about his readiness to meet
Rouhani, Trump said: “If the circum-
stances were correct, I certainly would
agree to that.”
On Trump’s proposal to invite Rus-
sia back to what used to be the G8,
Macron made clear that there was no
consensus. Moscow was excluded
from the group in 2014 after it annexed
Crimea and then backed an anti-Kiev
rebellion in eastern Ukraine.
France has spearhead ed an eff ort to
stop a drift towards tension and con-
fl ict in the Gulf following Trump’s
decision in May 2018 to pull the US out
of a multilateral nuclear deal with Iran
and reimpose heavy sanctions culmi-
nat ing in an oil embargo. In response,
Iran has begun to break out of some
restrictions on its nuclear programme
imposed under the nuclear deal.
The French proposal is for the US
to roll back some of its “maximum
pressure” campaign and for Iran to
return to full compliance with the
agreement, allowing space for further
talks on non-nuclear issues such as
Iran’s missile programme and its role
in regional confl icts.
Speaking about the French initia-
tive yesterday, Rouhani said: “Even if
the probability of success is 20 or 10 %,
we need to try and not lose the oppor-
tunity ... We believe that we need to
do every measure that is necessary.”Nuclear deal
France steers
Iran and US
towards talks
2020 Trump
wants to host
summit at his
Miami resort
Doral Miami. “With Doral we have a
series of magnifi cent buildings ... we
have incredible conference rooms,
incredible restaurants,” he said at a
press conference. “Doral happens to
be ... only fi ve minutes from the air-
port, the airport’s right next door.”
The US is due to host the summit
next year, and Trump said offi cials
would give a presentation “fairly soon”
about other possible locations.
Trump said he had been losing
money as president. “I’ve spent, and
I think I will, in a combination of loss
and opportunity, probably it will cost
me anywhere from $3bn to $5bn to be
president,” Trump said. “And the only
thing I care about is this country.
“People have asked me, What do
you think it costs? ” he said. “I used to
make a lot of money to give speeches.
Now I give speeches all the time, and
what do I get? Zippo.” Far left,
Anti-G7 activists
protest. Left,
Melania and
Donald Trump
with Brigitte
and Emmanuel
Macron
Justin Trudeau
and Angela
Merkel
PHOTOGRAPHS:
STÉPHANE MAHÉ/
REUTERS; GETTY
IMAGES; SEAN
KILPATRICK/THE
CANADIAN PRESS /APa broad opening in it, returning to
declare it a metaphor for Brexit.
None of the cast had a sense
of theatre to match the master
of ceremonies, Macron. He tried
from the start to shake the dullness
and sense of futility out of the
proceedings with the occasional
stunt. He corralled Trump
immediately on his arrival , ushering
him out on to the hotel terrace where
a table had been prepared with white
linen and places set for two. It was a
gambit to get to the man by himself,
away from his aides.
T here was enough of a meeting of
minds to clear the way for Macron’s
second theatrical coup, fl ying in
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad
Javad Zarif, for talks across the
road from the summit, creating a
buzz of anticipation of a diplomatic
breakthrough between Tehran and
Washington at a time when the
seem to be drifting towards war.
At the fi nal closing conference ,
Macron declar ed himself confi dent
that Trump could meet his Iranian
counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, in
the coming weeks. Trump, always
keen on a photo op, did not rule it
out. But there was no sign, as the
delegations went their own ways on
yesterday that the US was prepared
to take the requisite fi rst step toward
dialogue by relaxing its punishing oil
embargo. Without that, the Macron
initiative is doomed to remain a
piece of performance art.
His eff orts to project progressive
modernity were repeatedly belied by
the turgid underlying realities. There
were sessions on gender equality,
but when it came to the group photo
of the expanded guest list outside
the Hotel du Palais, there were 24men on the dais, and one woman,
Angela Merkel, in the twilight of her
political career.
If there was a moment that
sounded the death knell of the old
order, it came at dinner in Biarritz’s
antique lighthouse, when the mood
turned sour as Trump pressed the
case for admitting Putin back in to
the club. The Europeans, with the
exception of Italy, were outraged.
Putin had been booted out in
2014 for breaking all the rules of
the postwar world. The G7, they
insisted, was a family of liberal
democracies or it was nothing.
Macron passed the baton to
Trump with a hug and a show of
camaraderie , but there was a distinct
sense of the established order being
given its last rites – to be replaced not
by anything fresh, but by something
older and more visceral.▼ Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron at
the centre of exchanges as the leaders
and their spouses assemble in Biarritz
PHOTOGRAPH: PHILIPPE WOJAZER/REUTERS‘If meeting will
resolve the problem
of my country,
I will not hesitate’Hassan Rouhani
Iranian presidentRELEASED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws