BIARRITZ, France:
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif flew into Biarritz in
southwestern France for the G7 summit yesterday in an unexpected and dramatic
attempt to break a diplomatic deadlock over Tehran's disputed nuclear program.
Zarif's presence had not been announced and represented a risky attempt by
French host Emmanuel Macron to find a way to soothe spiraling tensions between
Iran and the United States. He was not expected to hold face-to-face talks with
US President Donald Trump, but the presence of the two men in the same place
sparked hopes of a detente.

Before he left
Biarritz, Zarif said he held talks with Macron, while the French presidency
hailed 'positive' talks with the top Iranian diplomat. Zarif wrote on Twitter
he had met Macron after talks with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian
and also gave a briefing for British and German officials. "Road ahead is
difficult. But worth trying," he said.

Zarif will
"continue talks regarding the recent measures between the presidents of
Iran and France," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi earlier
tweeted, after flight tracking sites spotted that Zarif's plane had landed in
Biarritz. Zarif went straight into talks with his French counterpart to assess
what conditions could lead to a de-escalation of tension between Tehran and
Washington, a French official said.

The French
presidency had confirmed his arrival, but emphasized no talks were planned with
the American side. A French diplomat also suggested - without confirming - that
Trump had been made aware of the arrival during an impromptu two-hour lunch
with Macron on a hotel terrace on Saturday. "We work with full
transparency with the Americans," the diplomat told reporters on condition
of anonymity. Also speaking in Biarritz, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin
said that Trump had in the past said that if Iran "wants to sit down and
negotiate he will not set preconditions". Macron held talks with Zarif in
Paris on the eve of the G7 summit and has been leading efforts to bring Tehran
and Washington back to the negotiating table.

Trump's policy of
applying "maximum pressure" on Tehran via crippling sanctions has
been criticized by European powers and is seen as raising the risk of conflict
in the Middle East. Macron has urged the US administration to offer some sort
of relief to Iran, such as lifting sanctions on oil sales to China and India,
or a new credit line to enable exports. "To start this approach we need President
Trump to agree with the idea that we need to make a pause (in the "maximum
pressure" policy)," a French diplomat told reporters last week. This
is seen as a first step to get Iran back to the negotiating table, which could
then lead to a new international agreement to limit its nuclear program.

Speaking to AFP
last week, Zarif said that Macron's suggestions were "moving in the right
direction, although we are not definitely there yet". Last year, Trump
unilaterally pulled the US out of a landmark deal, of which Zarif had been a
key architect, on the nuclear program reached in 2015 between Iran, the US,
European powers, Russia and China.

Trump proclaimed
yesterday that the G7 summit was going "beautifully", but there was
no masking over cracks between the US president and his allies on many issues.
Leaders of the G7 countries -Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and
the United States - put on a united front as they spent a second day in the
high-end French surfing town of Biarritz. Trump arrived in Biarritz fresh from
having drastically upped the ante in the trade war with China.

European leaders
lined up to press for caution and yesterday Trump gave a glimmer of hope that
he was reconsidering his all-or-nothing approach to the dispute between the
world's two biggest economies. Asked whether he was having second thoughts
about the trade war, Trump, in a rare moment of public self-doubt, replied:
"I have second thoughts about everything." Then in an extraordinary
turnaround, Trump's spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said just hours later that
the president had been misunderstood. He did have regrets, she said, but not
what everyone thought. "He regrets not raising the tariffs higher,"
she explained.

At a breakfast
meeting, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson became the latest of the G7
partners to urge Trump to step back from a trade war that critics fear could
tip the world economy into recession. "Just to register a faint,
sheep-like note of our view on the trade war - we are in favor of trade peace
on the whole," Johnson told Trump.

The meeting with
Johnson, who is sometimes compared to a British version of the populist,
nationalist Trump, underlined the White House's dislike for the powerful
European Union. Trump has repeatedly threatened the EU with trade wars and
right before his departure from Washington he warned that he would slap wine
import tariffs on France if Macron does not retreat on a tax against US tech
giants.

The jovial
breakfast with Johnson, who is trying to steer the Brexit process taking
Britain out of the EU, emphasized that budding new alliance. Predicting that
Johnson would manage to untangle the mess of Brexit, Trump described in
typically undiplomatic terms the EU as "an anchor around their
ankle". The 73-year-old US leader then promised Johnson a "very big
trade deal, bigger than we've ever had." - Agencies