Tehran: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei on Tuesday said that his country will not hold talks with Washington on any level until it ‘changes its behaviour’ and returns to Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal.
“The policy of maximum pressure on Iran is not worth a dime, and the people in charge in the Islamic Republic are united in thinking that there will not be talks with the United States on any level,” Al Jazeera quoted Khamenei, as saying.
“If Washington changes its behaviour and returns to Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, then it can join multilateral talks between Iran and other parties to the deal,” the Supreme Leader added.
Prior to this, the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson, Abbas Mousavi, said on Monday that the President Hassan Rouhani was not planning to have a meeting with US leader Donald Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
Earlier on Saturday, in a drone attack on the Saudi Armaco oil facilities, both US and Saudi Arabia blamed Iran.
The incident led to a cut in oil production totalling 5.7 million barrels per day – about half of Saudi Arabia’s daily oil output. Yemen’s Houthi rebels have claimed responsibility for the attack.
Tensions have been brewing between Washington and Tehran since Donald Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal and re-imposed crippling sanctions on the Islamic Republic.