Iran
rejects Trump offer of talks as 'humiliation', without value
Bozorgmehr
Sharafedin
World
News
July 31, 2018 / 3:23 PM / Updated 23
minutes agoIran rejects Trump offer of
talks as 'humiliation', without value
Bozorgmehr
Sharafedin
LONDON (Reuters) - Senior Iranian
officials on Tuesday rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s offer of talks
without preconditions as worthless and “a humiliation” after he acted to
reimpose sanctions on Tehran following his withdrawal from a landmark nuclear
deal.
FILE PHOTO: Iran's President Hassan
Rouhani attends a news conference at the Chancellery in Vienna, Austria July 4,
2018. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner/File Photo
Separately, Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani said Trump’s repudiation of the accord reached in 2015 was “illegal”
and Iran would not easily yield to Washington’s renewed campaign to strangle
Iran’s vital oil exports.
In May, Trump pulled the United States out
of the multilateral deal concluded before he took office, denouncing it as
one-sided in Iran’s favor. On Monday, he declared that he would be willing to
meet Rouhani without preconditions to discuss how to improve relations.
The head of Iran’s Strategic Council on
Foreign Relations said on Tuesday Tehran saw no worth in Trump’s offer, made
only a week after he warned Iran it risked dire consequences few had ever
suffered in history if it made threats against Washington. Related Coverage
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“Based on our bad experiences in
negotiations with America and based on U.S. officials’ violation of their
commitments, it is natural that we see no value in his proposal,” Kamal
Kharrazi was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency.
“Trump should first make up for his
withdrawal from the nuclear deal and show that he respects his predecessors’
commitments and international law,” added Kharrazi, a former foreign minister.
The council was set up by Iranian Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to help formulate long-term policies for the
Islamic Republic.
Trump’s move to force Iran into fresh
negotiations has for now reunited Iranian hardliners who opposed the nuclear
deal and moderates like Rouhani who championed it to end the Islamic Republic’s
economically crippling stand-off with Western powers.
Ali Motahari, the deputy speaker of Iran’s
parliament who is seen as part of Iran’s moderate camp, said that to negotiate
with Trump now “would be a humiliation”.
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“If Trump had not withdrawn from the
nuclear deal and not imposed (new) sanctions on Iran, there would be no problem
with negotiations with America,” he told state news agency IRNA.
Iran’s interior minister chimed in that
Tehran did not trust Washington as a negotiating partner. “The United States is
not trustworthy. How can we trust this country when it withdraws unilaterally
from the nuclear deal?” Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli was quoted as saying by the
semi-official Fars news agency.
A senior aide to Rouhani said the only way
back to talks was for Washington to return to the nuclear agreement.
“Respecting the Iranian nation’s rights,
reducing hostilities and returning to the nuclear deal are steps that can be
taken to pave the bumpy road of talks between Iran and America,” Hamid
Aboutalebi tweeted on Tuesday.
Under the 2015 deal, the fruit of
Rouhani’s efforts to ease Iran’s international isolation to help revive its
economy, Iran curbed its shadowy nuclear program and won relief from U.N. and
Western sanctions in return. NUCLEAR PACT IN JEOPARDY
Trump condemned the deal in part because
it did not cover Iran’s ballistic missile program and involvement in Middle
East conflicts. He reactivated U.S. sanctions, the most all-encompassing
measures against Iran, and warned countries to stop importing Iranian oil from
Nov. 4 or risk U.S. penalties.
The three major European signatories to
the 2015 deal have been searching for ways to salvage it but cautioned Tehran
that they may not be able to persuade many major investors not to bolt from
business with Iran to avoid U.S. punishment.
Rouhani said during a meeting with
Britain’s ambassador on Tuesday that after what he called the “illegal” U.S.
withdrawal from the nuclear deal, “the ball is in Europe’s court now”.
He added, “The Islamic Republic has never
sought tension in the region and does not want any trouble in global waterways,
but it will not easily give up on its rights to export oil.”
Rouhani and some senior military
commanders have said Iran could disrupt oil shipments from Gulf states through
the Strait of Hormuz if Washington tries to choke off Iranian oil exports.
Reiterating Tehran’s official stance,
Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi was quoted as saying by
Tasnim news agency on Tuesday that the strait would remain open “if Iran’s
national interests are preserved”.
Iran’s OPEC governor, Hossein Kazempour
Ardebili, told Reuters on Tuesday that Trump was mistaken to expect Saudi
Arabia and other oil producers to compensate for losses of Iranian oil caused
by U.S. sanctions.
“It seems President Trump has been taken
hostage by Saudi Arabia and a few producers when they claimed they can replace
2.5 million barrels per day of Iranian exports, encouraging him to take action
against Iran,” Ardebili said.
“Now they and Russia sell more oil and
more expensively. Not even from their incremental production but their stocks.”
He said oil prices, which Trump has been
pressuring the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to bring down
by raising output, will instead rise unless the United States grants waivers to
buyers of Iranian crude.
Iran’s currency plumbed new depths on
Monday, dropping past 120,000 rials to the dollar, but Trump’s expressed
willingness to negotiate with Tehran sparked a minor recovery on Tuesday to
110,000 rials on the unofficial market.
Iranian Vice-President Eshagh Jahangiri
said the government and the central bank would unveil a new economic plan by
the end of this week to tackle the U.S. sanctions and the rial’s fall.
Videos on social media showed hundreds of
people rallying in Isfahan in central Iran in protest at high prices caused in
part by the rial’s devaluation under heightened U.S. pressure.
Additional reporting by Alex Lawler in
London; Editing by Mark Heinrich
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