Trump looking to ‘make Iran great again’
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday he would impose fresh sanctions on Iran but that he wanted to make a deal to bolster its flagging economy, an apparent move to defuse tensions following the shooting down of an unmanned US drone last week by the Islamic Republic.
On Thursday, an Iranian missile destroyed a US Global Hawk surveillance drone.
Trump later said he had called off a military strike to retaliate because it could have killed 150 people.
Tehran repeated on Saturday that the drone was shot down over its territory and said it would respond firmly to any US threat. But Washington said it happened in international airspace.
Speaking in Washington on Saturday before heading to the US presidential retreat at Camp David, Trump indicated the government was taking a diplomatic path to put pressure on Tehran by moving to impose new sanctions.
Military action was “always on the table,” Trump said, but he added that he was open to quickly reaching a deal with Iran that he said would bolster the country’s flagging economy.
“We will call it ‘Let’s make Iran great again’,” Trump said.
He later wrote on Twitter from Camp David: “We are putting major additional Sanctions on Iran on Monday. I look forward to the day that Sanctions come off Iran, and they become a productive and prosperous nation again.”
Both the US and Iran have said they are not seeking a war but Iran has warned of a “crushing” response if attacked.
“Regardless of any decision they (US officials) make ... we will not allow any of Iran’s borders to be violated. Iran will firmly confront any aggression or threat by America,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi told the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Saturday.
A senior commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards struck a similarly note, in comments quoted by the Islamic Republic News Agency.
“If the violation is repeated then our response will be repeated,” said Iran’s Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh, head of the Guards’ airspace division. “It’s possible that this infringement of the Americans was carried out by a general or some operators.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned a United Arab Emirates envoy on Saturday because the UAE allowed the drone to be launched from a US military base on its territory, the Fars news agency reported.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif published a map on Twitter with detailed coordinates which he said showed the drone was flying over the country’s territorial waters.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement on Saturday that the US had “shown beyond any doubt” that the drone was in international airspace.
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