Door open to diplomacy if Trump lifts sanctions on Iran: Zarif Timelines: N-Iran-takeover

“Once those sanctions are lifted, then … the room for negotiation is wide open,” Zarif said during a visit to New York for a U.N. conference. The Iranian top diplomat said, “U.S. has deprived itself from Iran’s market. The market is open to U.S. companies”.

Zarif said it was the United States, not Iran, that had undermined diplomacy by walking away from the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and world powers. “It is the United States that left the bargaining table. And they’re always welcome to return,” Zarif said.

President Donald Trump last year pulled the U.S. out of the agreement.

Zarif said Iran had no interest in securing a nuclear arsenal, though it could have built the bomb if it wanted to. “Had we been interested in developing nuclear weapons, we would have been able to do it long time ago,” Zarif said. Zarif said he did not think the two countries were on the verge of war, saying neither his government nor Trump was seeking armed conflict. “I do not believe that President Trump wants war. But I believe that people are around him who wouldn’t mind,” Zarif said.