Iran parliament rules out resumption of US talks until preconditions are met

DUBAI (Reuters) : Iran’s parliament said the country should not resume nuclear negotiations with the United States until preconditions are met, in a statement reported on Wednesday by Iranian state media.

“When the U.S. use negotiations as a tool to deceive Iran and cover up a sudden military attack by the Zionist regime (Israel), talks cannot be conducted as before. Preconditions must be set and no new negotiations can take place until they are fully met,” the statement said.

The statement did not define the preconditions, but Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has previously said there should be guarantees there will be no further attacks against Tehran.

Israel and the U.S. launched strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities last month, saying that they were part of a programme geared towards developing nuclear weapons. Tehran maintains that its nuclear programme is purely for civilian purposes.

Tehran and Washington had held five rounds of indirect negotiations mediated by Oman prior to the 12-day air war, with U.S. demands that Tehran drop its domestic uranium enrichment programme reaching a dead end.

Last week, Araqchi reiterated Tehran’s position that it would not agree to a nuclear deal that prevents it from enriching uranium and would refuse to discuss extra-nuclear topics such as its ballistic missile programme.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he was in no rush to negotiate with Iran as its nuclear sites were now “obliterated”, but the U.S., in coordination with three European countries, has agreed to set the end of August as the deadline for a deal.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Tuesday that Paris, London and Berlin would trigger the United Nations sanctions snapback mechanism, which would reimpose international sanctions on Iran, by the end of August if there is no concrete progress regarding an agreement.