Mohammad Javad Zarif says he hopes new Trump administration will be more serious, focused and realistic

A senior Iranian politician has appealed to Donald Trump to begin new negotiations with Tehran over its civil nuclear programme, saying: “I hope that this time around, [Trump 2.0] will be more serious, more focused, more realistic.”

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s vice-president for strategic affairs, pointed out that the returning US president had not reappointed figures from his first term such as the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, who persuaded him in 2018 to quit the nuclear deal on the basis that withdrawal would lead to the regime’s collapse.