But his remarks imply a willingness to work with someone from within the Islamic Republic rather than seek to topple the Government, which has been a sworn enemy of the United States since the 1979 Islamic revolution toppled the pro-Western Shah.
The late Shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, has proposed that he return as a transitional figure before Iran drafts a new constitution as a secular democracy. Pahlavi earlier on Thursday said that any new supreme leader within the Islamic Republic would be illegitimate.
Ali Khamenei, who ruled Iran since 1989 with hardline policies that included repression at home and confrontation with neighbouring countries, was killed in an Israeli strike as Israel and the United States opened war.
His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, is considered one of the contenders to succeed his father, who was only the second supreme leader after revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
In Venezuela, Trump ordered a deadly January 3 attack in which US forces snatched Maduro, a longtime US nemesis.
Rather than backing the opposition long championed by the United States, Trump has said he has been pleased by Rodriguez, who was Maduro’s vice-president but has co-operated on key US demands, notably on benefiting oil companies.
She is doing so under Trump’s threat of violence if she does not do what he wants, particularly on access to natural resources.
-Agence France-Presse
