Tehran and Washington have been locked in a bitter standoff since last year when US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled out of the 2015 deal that provided Iran relief from sanctions in return for the curbingof its atomic program. Trump said Monday he was ready to meet Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani within weeks, in a potential breakthrough reached during a G7 summit in the French seaside resort of Biarritz. But Rouhani has said Washington must first lift sanctions imposed since its withdrawal from the nuclear deal, and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reiterated that message. Iran was still talking to other world powers involved in the deal, he said. The statement came hours after a report that the US attacked and disabled a critical Iranian data base used to target oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.