Tehran:
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Argchi on Sunday dismissed direct talks with the United States as “meaningless”, when US President Donald Trump said he would prefer direct talks with the Islamic Republic.
Trump called Tehran to interact with Washington on his nuclear program last month, but threatened to bomb Iran if diplomacy fails.
On Thursday, the US President said he would like to have “direct talks” with Iran.
“I think it goes fast and you consider the other side much better if you go through middlemen,” they argued.
But on Sunday, Argchi said, “Direct talks will be meaningless with a party that constantly threatens to resort to forcing the United Nations Charter and expresses contradictory positions to its various officers”.
According to the statement of the Ministry of External Affairs, “We are committed to diplomacy and are ready to try the path of indirect talks.”
“Iran keeps itself ready for all possible or potential events, and as it is serious in diplomacy and dialogue, it will also be decisive and serious in defending its national interests and sovereignty,” said Araghchi.
On Saturday, Iranian President Masaud Peseshkian said that his country was ready to engage in a conversation with the US with “equal footing”.
He also questioned Washington’s honesty in calling for talks, “If you want a conversation, what is the matter of threatening?”
Nuclear program
Western countries led by the United States have accused Tehran of acquiring nuclear weapons for decades.
Iran rejects the allegation and states that its nuclear activities exist perfectly for civil purposes.
Hosain Salami, head of the Islamic revolutionary guard corps, said that the country was “ready” for war.
The official IRNA news agency told him, saying, “We are not at all concerned about the war. We will not be the creator of war, but we are ready for any war.”
In 2015, Iran reached a historic deal with permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, such as the United States, France, China, Russia and the United Kingdom, to a historic deal with Germany to regulate its atomic activities.
The 2015 agreement is formally known as a joint comprehensive plan (JCPOA), relieving Iran’s sanctions in return for curb on its nuclear program that Tehran could not develop an nuclear weapon.
In 2018, during the first term at Trump’s office, the United States withdrew from the agreement and restored restrictions on Iran.
A year later, Iran began to return to its commitments under the agreement and intensified its nuclear program.
On Monday, Ali Larizani, a close adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned that Iran was not looking for nuclear weapons, in the event of an attack against it, “there would be no option but to do so”.
(This story is not edited by NDTV employees and auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)