27 May, 2017
Reformist candidates swept municipal elections in Iran's capital, taking all 21 seats in Tehran as moderate President Hassan Rouhani won a second term, state media reported Monday. Trump also made a visit to the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City.
"I am hopeful that through our joint efforts, the traditionally warm and friendly Armenian-Iranian relations will continue to develop and strengthen in all areas, registering a qualitatively new level of cooperation between our peoples", Sarkisian said.
Mr Trump said shared concern about Iran was driving Israel and many Arab states closer and demanded that Tehran immediately cease military and financial backing of "terrorists and militias". Many however, interpret both of the aforementioned initiatives, at least in part, as being both out of a shared concern between Israel, the Gulf States and the USA of a rising Iran.
During his visit to Saudi Arabia on Sunday, Trump called on the regional countries to isolate Iran which, he said, had "fuelled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror". Rouhani said that Iranians are "waiting for this government to become stable intellectually" and that "hopefully, things will settle down.so we could pass more accurate judgments".
From early stages of the 11th government we underlined that Syrian crisis should be resolved through peaceful means, the president-elect said in response to a question posed by the Syrian news agency (SANA).
This is probably the stupidest foreign policy commitment any American administration has made since the decision 60 years ago to take France's place in fighting the "Communist menace" in Vietnam.
Years of global sanctions throttled investment in Iran, once OPEC's second-largest producer, and stunted its economy.
Rouhani defeated a hardline rival in Friday's election with promises to be more open to the world and ease social and political limitations at home.
Saudi Arabia is surely now relieved that the visit has given an impression of a favorable shift in the USA policy in the Middle East, one that takes a stronger stance against its archrival Iran.
On Monday, Trump touched down in Israel for the second part of his foreign trip, the first one since taking office.
At the Tehran press conference, Rouhani also defended Iran's ballistic missile program, something heavily criticized by Trump's new administration.
Rouhani, who fronted Tehran's deal with six major powers in 2015 to curb Iran's nuclear programme in return for the lifting of sanctions, said the USA administration lacked knowledge about the Middle East. Our missiles are for peace and for defence.
Returning to the subject of Iran later in the day, in off-the-cuff remarks to Netanyahu, Trump added that the Islamic republic appeared emboldened by the historic nuclear deal with Barack Obama.
At the same time, the USA imposed new sanctions on Iran's ballistic missile program and said it was continuing to review Iran's adherence to the 2015 nuclear accord.
