IRAN/NUCLEAR/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday [7-30-18] he would be willing to meet Iran’s leader without preconditions to discuss how to improve ties after he pulled the United States out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, saying, ‘If they want to meet, we’ll meet’…No U.S. president has met with an Iranian leader since the United States cut diplomatic relations with Tehran a year after the 1979 revolution that toppled the shah, a U.S. ally. President Barack Obama broke a three-decade freeze with a phone call to Rouhani in 2013. There was no sign that Trump’s potential willingness to meet with his Iranian counterpart would mean any change in his administration’s intent to ratchet up sanctions and rhetoric against Tehran with the stated goal of ‘seeking changes in the Iranian government’s behavior.'”
-Roberta Rampton, “Trump says he is willing to talk to Iran’s leader without preconditions,” Reuters, July 30, 2018 11:49 am