No Iran-U.S. Negotiation at Any Level: Ministry

Date: 14 July 2019 - 21:51

News ID: ۶۸۱۱۵

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- The spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry on Sunday denied rumors that the United States had sent a message to Iran via Russia.
"There is no negotiation going on between Iran and the United States at any level," Abbas Mousavi said.
Mousavi was apparently denying social media reports that Iran's Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo planned to meet soon, thanks to Russia's mediation efforts.
The spokesman characterized the reports as "fake news" and "news fabrication."
It came as Zarif travelled to New York on Saturday to a United Nations conference amid rising tension between Washington and Tehran.
The United States and Iran are at loggerheads over Tehran’s nuclear program and Washington has baselessly blamed Iranian forces for attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf region, a charge Tehran denies.
Last month when Iran shot down a U.S. drone, prompting Washington to claim that it had ordered retaliatory airstrikes that were called off at the last minute.
Zarif will attend a meeting of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in New York and would then travel to Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua, IRNA reported.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in June that Washington would impose sanctions on top Iranian officials, including Zarif, a step that could have impeded any diplomatic efforts to resolve their disagreements.
But two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday the United States had decided not to impose sanctions on Zarif for now, in a sign that Washington might be holding a door open for diplomacy.
President Donald Trump withdrew the United States last year from a 2015 accord between Iran and world powers. Washington has ratcheted up sanctions on Iran since then, and pledged to bring the country’s oil exports down to zero.
Tehran has responded by enriching uranium beyond set limits and threatening to restart deactivated centrifuges and ramp up enrichment.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Sunday claimed that Iran’s decision was "a bad reaction to ... (a) bad decision”.
"The situation is serious. The rise of tensions could lead to accidents,” he told reporters when asked about the risk of a wider Middle East war.
"The fact Iran has decided to pull back from some of its engagements on nuclear proliferation is an additional worry. It is a bad decision, a bad reaction to another bad decision, that of the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal a year ago,” he said, arriving for Paris’s annual Bastille Day military parade.
The European powers say they do not support Trump’s sanctions squeeze on Iran, but have been unable or not willing to come up with ways to allow Iran to avert the sanctions.
Le Drian said, "No one wants a war. I’ve noticed that everyone is saying they don’t want to go to the summit of the escalation. Neither (Iranian) President Rouhani, nor President Trump or other Persian Gulf leaders. But here there are elements of escalation that are worrisome.”