Mike Pompeo, the former U.S. secretary of state, said the Islamic Republic’s demands on the United States show that Tehran is “not even close” to accepting a long-term peace agreement with Washington. According to him, the Islamic Republic has an incentive to confront the negotiations with obstacles ahead of the U.S. midterm elections.

Pompeo, discussing the position of the Islamic Republic in the negotiations, said: “Iranians are still not willing to concede—not because they are not good negotiators, but because they don’t do deals at all. They are terrorists and thugs who want to destroy Israel and the United States of America.”

The U.S. foreign minister during Donald Trump’s first term as president said the Islamic Republic is aware of the proximity of the U.S. midterm elections and wants Donald Trump, the president of the United States, to lose in those elections.

Pompeo said: “They know perfectly well that an election is coming and they perfectly want to make Trump lose in that election. No president like him has weakened their army in this way. No former president, whether Republican or Democrat, has been prepared to do such a thing.”