US National Security Adviser John Bolton says he has said raised the issue of tightening economic sanctions against Iran with the head of Russia’s National Security Council, but provided no details.
Bolton made the remarks at a news conference on Thursday after more than five hours of talks with Nikolai Patrushev in Geneva.
He also said they had discussed a phased withdrawal of Iran’s presence in Syria during the talks. “Our objective is that all Iranian forces return to Iran… And we talked about a variety of ways in which it might be accomplished through a series of steps.”
Bolton, one of the Trump administration’s leading hawks in dealing with Iran, said that following the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, the Trump administration’s objective was to “put maximum pressure on the regime” by making sanctions “more extensive and more effective.”
This week, Bolton held talks with Israel’s Prime…