WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th August, 2019) The United States wants to resolve its tensions with Iran through diplomacy and is not looking for a military conflict, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said on Wednesday.
"We are not seeking conflict with Iran, we want to engage with them diplomatically," Esper said during a press briefing at the Pentagon.
Esper said he hopes Iran's leadership will agree to talks that help resolve the issue.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump said during his closing press conference at the G7 Summit in France that he would meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani under the right circumstances. He added that he does not rule out holding such a meeting within a short amount of time.
French President Emmanuel Macron said during a joint press conference with Trump earlier that he would like to see a meeting take place between Trump and Rouhani within weeks.
Trump said it would be realistic to expect a meeting with Rouhani take place in the coming weeks.
US-Iran relations have been in a downward spiral since the United States unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal last spring. The United States has since proclaimed it intends to bring down Iran's sale of oil to zero and reintroduced sanctions against almost all major sectors of country's economy.
The situation worsened over recent months following a series of attacks on commercial tankers in the Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz, for which Washington and its allies have blamed Iran. Tehran has rejected the accusations.
