Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Ramadan 17, 1445 H
broken clouds
weather
OMAN
23°C / 23°C
EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Rouhani rules out bilateral talks

1307026
1307026
minus
plus

TEHRAN: Iran will never hold bilateral talks with the United States, but if it lifts all the sanctions it reimposed on Iran, it can join multilateral talks between Iran and other parties to a 2015 nuclear deal, President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday. “No decision has ever been taken to hold talks with the US and there has been a lot of offers for talks but our answer will always be negative,” Rouhani told an open session of parliament broadcast live


on state radio.


“If America lifts all the sanctions then like before it can join multilateral talks between Tehran and parties to the 2015 deal,” he added.


US President Donald Trump, although applying “maximum pressure” on Iran, has offered to meet its leaders and hold bilateral talks with no pre-conditions to end the confrontation between their countries.


Last month, Rouhani said Iran would not talk to America until the United States lifted all of the sanctions it reimposed after it exited the 2015 nuclear deal last year.


European parties to the deal have struggled to calm the deepening confrontation between Iran and the United States and save the deal by shielding Iran’s economy from the sanctions. But the European powers have warned that their support for the deal is dependent on Iran’s full commitment to it.


Iran has called on the Europeans to accelerate their efforts and Rouhani stressed that Iran would take a third step in scaling back its nuclear commitments by Thursday.


“If Europeans can purchase our oil or pre-purchase it and we can have access to our money, that will ease the situation and we can fully implement the deal... otherwise we will take our third step,” he said.


The 2015 deal between Iran and six other countries, reached under former US president Barack Obama, curbed Iran’s nuclear work in exchange for the lifting of most international sanctions in 2016. Iran has started to scale back its nuclear commitments since May and it will take further steps on September 5, aimed at ratcheting up pressure on the European parties of the pact to protect its economic interests despite the US sanctions.


Iranian authorities have said the next step would be “stronger” and might include enriching uranium to 20 per cent or restarting mothballed centrifuges, machines that purify uranium for use as fuel in power plants or, if very highly enriched, in weapons.


Meanwhile, Iran said it would further reduce its commitments under a 2015 nuclear deal if European parties failed to shield Tehran’s economy from sanctions reimposed by the US after Washington quit the accord last year.


“It is meaningless to continue unilateral commitments to the deal if we don’t enjoy its benefits as promised by the deal’s European parties,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart in Moscow.


— Agencies


SHARE ARTICLE
arrow up
home icon