TEHRAN – Following the collapse of nuclear talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad said on Friday that Trump “should have now realized that photo opportunities and flip-flops don’t make for serious diplomacy."

It was the second time that Trump and Kim held a summit on North Korea’s denuclearization. The first one took place in Singapore on June 12.

After their second summit in Vietnam, the two sides gave conflicting accounts of exactly what happened, raising questions about the future of their denuclearization talks.

"President Trump should've now realized that pageantries, photo-ops & flip-flops don’t make for serious diplomacy," Zarif twitted.

Trump withdrew from the multilateral 2015 Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in May last year and illegally ordered sanctions against Iran. He had claimed it was "one of the most incompetently drawn deals I've ever seen".

Zarif said, "It took 10 years of posturing plus two years-literally thousands of hours-of negotiations to hammer out every word of the 150 page JCPOA.

The chief diplomat reminded Trump that he will “never get a better deal".

PA/PA