US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Bloomberg Television on Friday he would be willing to travel to Tehran to address the Iranian people about US foreign policy.
“Sure, if that’s the call, happily go there. I’d like a chance to go, not do propaganda but speak the truth to the Iranian people about what it is their leadership has done and how it has harmed Iran,” he said.
Pompeo likened such a trip to how Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif communicates with the American public during his trips to the United Nations in New York.
Pompeo dismissed the role his Iranian counterpart plays in setting the government’s policy, which he said is driven by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“Foreign Minister Zarif is no more in charge of what’s going on in Iran than a man in the moon,” the Secretary of State told Bloomberg. “At the end of the day, this is driven by the ayatollah. He will be the ultimate decision-maker here.”
US President Donald Trump withdrew last May from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, and later imposed two rounds of sanctions on Iran, the latest of which went into effect in November of 2018.
Trump has said he’s open to talks with Iran and that the US is ready to negotiate at any time for a new deal that would strengthen limits on Iran’s nuclear program and replace the 2015 agreement.
Iran, however, has refused to talk to the US as long as sanctions that Trump reimposed remain in place. Instead, it has begun to roll back its commitments under the deal and has warned that it is prepared to end all of its commitments.