United States: A close advisor to President-elect Donald J. Trump, Elon Musk, held a meeting with Iran’s envoy to the United Nations on Monday in New York, a meeting which two Iranian officials said was a briefing on steps to reduce conflict between Iran and the United States, wrote, Iranian media outlets.
The Iranians said that Mr. Musk met with Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani in a meeting that lasted over an hour in an undisclosed venue.
The Iranians who asked not to be named because they were not officially allowed to discuss such policies said the meeting was something positive they considered “good” news.
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According to Steven Cheung, Mr. Trump’s communications director, “We do not comment on reports of private meetings that did or did not occur,” when asked to comment on such a session.
Mr. Musk has become the most dominant private individual in the Trump transition and participated in meetings for nearly all jobs.
Last Tuesday, Trump spoke by phone with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky; at one point, the president-elect passed the phone to the billionaire.
Mr. Musk has been instrumental in offering communication capacity to Ukraine in the conflict with Russia.
An initial face-to-face encounter of a top Iranian diplomat with Mr. Musk opens the door to a more amiable relationship between Tehran and Washington in the Trump era despite a bitter past between Trump and Iran.
One of the Iranians explained that Mr. Musk himself proposed the meeting and the ambassador chose the location for it.
In his first term, Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, signed in 2015 between Iran and world powers describing it as “the worst and most one-sided deal ever made”.
He also directed the killing of a leading official of Iran, Qassim Suleimani in Iraq in January 2020.