G7 leaders agree Macron should send message to Iran

G7 leaders agreed that President Emmanuel Macron should hold talks and pass on messages to Iran after they discussed the issue at a summit in southwestern France on Saturday evening, a French presidential source said.

The source said the priority remained to prevent Iran obtaining nuclear weapons and defuse tensions in the Gulf.

“As president of the G7, the president did indeed get the power to discuss and send a message to Iranian authorities on the basis of the exchanges we had last night,” the French official said, without providing any details.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump on Sunday dismissed media reports of tensions among the leaders of the G7 group of industrialized nations meeting in Biarritz and said everyone was “getting along very well.”

“Before I arrived in France, the Fake and Disgusting News was saying that relations with the 6 others countries in the G-7 are very tense, and that the two days of meetings will be a disaster,” Trump wrote on Twitter shortly before meeting UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson for a bilateral focused on trade.

“Well, we are having very good meetings, the Leaders are getting along very well, and our Country, economically, is doing great - the talk of the world!”

Russian reintegration

G7 leaders back strengthening cooperation with Russia after its expulsion from the group in 2014 but believe it is too early to reintegrate Moscow and return to a G8, diplomatic sources said Sunday.

“The leaders of the G7 are in favor of reinforcing coordination with Russia (but)... it is too early for reintegration,” said a diplomatic source, who asked not to be named.

G7 leaders had also mandated French President Emmanuel Macron to send a message to Iran as tensions rise over its nuclear program, the source said.