Tehran refuses to meet a US delegation “under any circumstances” and won’t change its “path” unless “words change into actions”, according to Keyvan Khosravi, spokesman of the Supreme National Security Council. The official said: “We have said clearly, as long as the rights of our nation are not satisfied, as long as words don’t change into action, our path will stay the same as now. There will be no talks under any circumstances.”
Mr Khosravi added delegations from a number of countries have been travelling to Iran’s capital city in the past months to play the role of intermediate between Washington and Tehran.
Claiming “most of them are coming on behalf of America”, the Iranian official added what Tehran answered these diplomats, saying: “Without exception, we have responded with the message of the Iranian nation’s strength, reason and resistance.”
Among the delegations heading to Iran this week, there has been one from Oman, represented by the country’s Foreign Minister Yusef Bin Alavi, and one from Germany, including foreign ministry’s political director Jens Plotner.
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Both countries have played major roles in negotiating with Iran and the US in the past years.
Oman was one of the countries who helped to bring Washington and Tehran to the negotiating table in 2015 to eventually sign the JCPOA, also known as Iran nuclear deal.
And Germany has been playing a central role in keeping the deal alive after Donald Trump pulled out of it in May 2018 and issued new sanctions against Tehran.
Together with France and the UK, Berlin has created a payment system which allows Iranian companies to trade abroad despite Mr Trump’s attempts to bring the exports of Iranian oil to zero.
Mr Khosravi’s harsh words come after the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said Mr Trump doesn’t want to wage war against Iran and hopes to “someday meeting Iranian leaders”.
But, Mr Pompeo added the US is ready to deliver a “swift and decisive” response to any attack from Iran.
He said: “As President Trump stated, he ‘looks forward to someday meeting with leaders of Iran in order to work out an agreement and, very importantly, taking steps to give Iran the future it deserves’.”
On Sunday, the US carried out a simulated military exercise in the Arabian Sea to show Washington’s “lethality and agility to respond to threat”.