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Iran’s foreign minister paid a visit to a G7 summit in France on Sunday, an unexpected twist to a meeting already troubled by differences between U.S. President Donald Trump and Western allies over a raft of issues, including Iran.

A White House official said France’s invitation to Mohammad Javad Zarif for talks on the sidelines of the gathering in the southwestern beachside town of Biarritz was “a surprise”.

Zarif met his French counterpart to assess what conditions could lead to a de-escalation of tensions between Tehran and Washington, a French official said.

Zarif also saw French President Emmanuel Macron during his brief stay, but the White House official said the Iranian minister did not meet any U.S. officials before he flew out of Biarritz airport.

European leaders have struggled to calm a deepening confrontation between Iran and the United States since Trump pulled his country out of Iran’s internationally brokered 2015 nuclear deal last year and reimposed sanctions on the Iranian economy.

Earlier on Sunday, Trump appeared to brush aside French efforts to mediate with Iran, saying that while he was happy for Paris to reach out to Tehran he would carry on with his own initiatives.

Macron has taken the lead in trying to defuse tensions, fearing that a collapse of the nuclear deal could set the Middle East ablaze. He met Zarif on Friday ahead of the G7 summit to discuss ways of easing the crisis, including reducing some U.S. sanctions or providing Iran with a compensation mechanism.

Iran wants to export a minimum of 700,000 barrels per day of its oil and ideally up to 1.5 million bpd if the West wants to negotiate with Tehran to save the 2015 deal, two Iranian officials and one diplomat told Reuters on Sunday.

However, Trump’s fellow G7 leaders failed on Saturday to persuade the U.S. president to reissue oil sanction waivers that were granted last year to some buyers, but which came to end in May, a European diplomat familiar with the discussion said.