Officials say France wants more Iran sanctions

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, left, attends a meeting with French employer’s body MEDEF union leader Pierre Gattaz, right, and French business leaders and politicians at a hotel in Paris, France, on January 27, 2016.

Rouhani then visited the Vatican for the first time and met Pope Francis, who has urged Iran to work for peace in the Middle East.

Mr Rouhani’s five-day visit to Italy and France is the first by an Iranian president in almost two decades, as the Iranian president seeks to rebuild economic ties and secure new trade deals.

Last week, nude statues were covered up in Rome during Rouhani’s state visit to Italy.

Iran’s president has started his visit to France, the second stop of his European tour.

“I think that the meeting of President Rouhani with the pope is one of the signals of the fact that, after the nuclear deal, we have a possibility of a relevant involvement of Iran in a regional and global framework”, Gentiloni said.

“I would like to see the Americans set aside their hostility and chose another way, but inside the U.S. there are some problems, there is no unified voice”, he said, claiming “the Zionist lobby” is “very influential”.

Iran has reportedly planned to buy around 110 planes from Airbus.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani speaks with media in a press briefing in Tehran, Iran.

“Rolling out the red carpet for Rouhani by European governments is to welcome the godfather of terrorism and fundamentalism”, said Maryam Rajavi, head of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran.

Large white boxes were therefore placed in front of these statues in a move ANSA, an Italian news agency, said was purely out of respect for Iranian culture.

But Sylvia says that “Rouhani denied that specific requests had been made”. At a ceremony held in the Capitoline Museums on Monday, Rouhani and Renzi oversaw the signing of contracts worth up to $18.3 billion.

The nuclear deal between Iran and the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany broke a 12- year worldwide standoff, during which Iran was accused of developing nuclear capacity for military purposes and hit with serious economic sanctions. The visit, however, was postponed following the Paris attacks.

Rouhani made the comment while speaking to reporters after an audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican. Freedom of expression “doesn’t mean offending that which is sacred to other people’s faith”, he said in an apparent reference to the French magazine “Charlie Hebdo”.

France took a hard line in the nuclear talks and condemned Iran for supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.