12 points that we laid out. Really, these are a set of simple requests – that the Iranian regime refrain from killing people in Europe, assassination campaigns around the world; release our hostages, stop their nuclear enrichment and weapons program, cease preparing missiles that threaten Israel – some simple demands. And Foreign Minister Zarif said, well, this would be annihilation for my country. I have the words a little bit off, but he said this would be national annihilation. Nothing could be further from the truth. What we’ve asked the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran to do is to behave like a normal country – grow your economy, take care of your own people, stop arming proxy forces that are killing people all around the world and threatening American interests around the world. If they do those things, President Trump is happy to engage them in the way that we engage other countries around the world. Q: [Moving on to] the status of the ongoing talks with North Korea. What reasons should the American people have right now for optimism? Some obviously have been frustrated from the beginning; others are willing to give the president more leeway because there’s been pretty bipartisan failure on this for a while. Why should people think this is going to work? SECRETARY POMPEO: When we came into office, it was in a bad place. President Trump made the decision to engage with them in a serious way. We’re continuing to try to do that. We hope that the working-level discussions will begin in a couple of weeks.
SECRETARY POMPEO: Buck, we have broadened our diplomatic engagement with the Northern Triangle. We’ve taken this very seriously. Many of the folks that we apprehend today at our southern border are not only from those three countries but are transiting through those three countries. They have an obligation. It’s interesting – I saw some statistics on how many Guatemalans have left, how deep the level of migration is. This isn’t good for Guatemala to have their citizens leaving, either. They need their people to want to stay in the country, and their leaders need to create rule of law and systems that will convince them that that’s the right thing to do. But in the interim, we have enforcement measures and deterrence measures that we have to put in place, so I’ll be with the new leader in El Salvador and I’ll speak with the Guatemalans later this week as well by phone. There’s still a lot of work to do as they are – there are too many people leaving the Northern Triangle and transiting Mexico. Q: Now, switching to Iran for a moment, there was obviously a downed drone, an Iranian drone. The Iranian foreign minister seems to think it did not happen. You’ve already confirmed that did in fact happen. The Iranians have a doorway to move away from bellicose behavior. They have a path. What is that path? SECRETARY POMPEO: [The] path’s really simple. What President Trump is asking of the leadership in Iran is to behave like a normal nation. Last night I saw Foreign Minister Zarif say what about the things that Pompeo asked for? There were these
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