TEHRAN, May 03 (MNA) – In an interview with British online newspaper The Independent, Iranian FM Zarif was quoted as saying although he doesn’t think war between Iran and the United States is imminent, “accidents can happen”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif spoke to The Independent at Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations a few days ago, while he was in New York to address a High-Level Meeting of the UN General Assembly on the International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace.

In the interview published on Thursday, Zarif was quoted as saying that although he doesn’t think war between Iran and the United States is imminent, “accidents can happen” that could then spiral into a military conflict.

Elaborating on these “accidents”, Zarif gave the example of thePersian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway where most of the world’s oil exporters pass through.

He also mentioned the January 2016 incident in the Persian Gulf when two US Navy boats trespassed into Iranian waters and were captured by the IRGC.

Zarif then talked about the prisoner swap with the United States, saying it would be between Americans detained in Iran and Iranians detained for sanctions violations in the US or elsewhere. The swap, he elaborated, would not include Europeans like British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been detained in Iran on security charges.

Asked about his interview with Fox News, Zarif said he wanted to reach out to Trump’s base in mainstream America “because it is important to speak to the other side sometimes”. He