President Donald Trump said Thursday that Iran has asked for heavy US sanctions against Tehran to be lifted — and that he is open to having a discussion about it.<\/p>\n
“Frankly, Iran has been asking if the sanctions could be lifted. Iran has got very heavy US sanctions, and it makes it really hard,” Trump said during a dinner with Central Asian leaders.<\/p>\n
“I’m open to hearing that, and we’ll see what happens, but I would be open to it.”<\/p>\n
Western countries, including the United States, have long accused Iran of seeking to acquire atomic weapons, while Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.<\/p>\n
Tehran has been reeling under years of international sanctions, especially after the United States in 2018 withdrew from an international nuclear accord with Tehran and reimposed tough punitive measures.<\/p>\n
In mid-June, Israel launched an unprecedented bombing campaign against Iran, triggering a war which saw the United States join briefly with strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.<\/p>\n
The 12-day war with Israel, which prompted an Iranian response with missile and drone strikes, derailed nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington which had begun in April.<\/p>\n
Trump said that Iran had once been the “bully of the Middle East” but no longer had the “possibility of nuclear weapons.”<\/p>\n
The Republican president, who returned to office in January, has repeatedly said the strikes obliterated Iran’s nuclear program, but the full extent of the damage remains unknown.<\/p>\n
In September, the United Nations reinstated sanctions against Tehran under the so-called “snapback” mechanism after Britain, France and Germany triggered the process.<\/p>\n
Those measures bar dealings linked to the Islamic republic’s nuclear and ballistic missile activities.<\/p>\n
Oman, which has hosted several rounds of US-Iran nuclear talks, has called on both sides to return to negotiations.<\/p>\n
The talks had aimed for a new agreement that would curb Iran’s nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief.<\/p>\n
aue\/sst\/mlm<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Donald Trump said Thursday that Iran has asked for heavy US sanctions against Tehran to be lifted — and that he is open to having a discussion about it. “Frankly, Iran has been asking if the sanctions could be lifted. Iran has got very heavy US sanctions, and it makes it really hard,” Trump […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17114,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[101,94,1392,144],"class_list":["post-17113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional","tag-diplomacy","tag-iran","tag-sanction","tag-us-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17116,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17113\/revisions\/17116"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}