Pompeo making spur-of-the-moment trip to Mideast as Iran rules out talks
Source: WAPO
By Carol Morello Kareem Fahim September 17 at 9:46 PM
The Trump administration announced that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would fly to the Persian Gulf on Wednesday to discuss a response to an attack on Saudi oil facilities, as Iran’s supreme leader ruled out any direct talks with the United States.
Pompeo’s spur-of-the-moment trip, which will include stops in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, underscores the danger that tensions with Iran could spiral into a military conflict. President Trump has said that Iran was probably responsible for the attack, but that he would “like to avoid” a war, while Pompeo has assigned blame more directly.
The weekend attack, which the United States says it believes originated in Iran despite claims by rebels in Yemen that they carried it out, appears to have dashed all hope that Trump might meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the U.N. General Assembly in New York next week.
“All the officials in the Islamic Republic unanimously believe that there will be no negotiations at any level with the United States,” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in remarks published on his website.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/tehran-rules-out-talks-with-us-as-trump-steps-back-from-directly-blaming-iran/2019/09/17/a472c6a0-d8b8-11e9-a1a5-162b8a9c9ca2_story.html
Why am I not feeling confident. He's got to clean up a world-class mess.
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