US not really pursuing dialogue with Iran, French defense source says
The United States is not actually interested in pursuing dialogue with Iran despite President Donald Trump's repeated claims that his administration seeks diplomacy not war, says a French defense source.
Speaking to CNN Wednesday, the unnamed source in the capital Paris noted that there is "no signal the US is interested in dialogue."
The source further stated that Paris would not "automatically" join Washington's so-called global coalition against Iran although France and the US are "good allies."
"We have our own goals... our own interests," said the source.
The comments were made as US Defense Secretary Mark Esper was about to discuss the matter with French Defense Minister Florence Parly at a meeting of NATO defense ministers in the EU de facto capital Brussels.
French intelligence services have maintained that the US drone, which was shot down by Iran last week, had violated Iranian air space despite US baseless claims that it was in the international airspace.
Iran is expecting signatories of the nuclear deal to engage in efforts to ease US unilateral pressure. Iranian president Hassan Rouhani has set July 7th a deadline to further scale back the country's commitment to the deal.
Trump claimed after the downing of the RQ-4A drone that he had called off US strikes on three different Iranian sites 10 minutes before they were planned to be launched.
Instead, Washington proceeded to add a series of bizarre sanctions to a series of bans it said it had planned to announce long before.
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