Iran's Parliament Rejects Further Negotiations With The US Until Conditions Are Fulfilled

Tehran, Iran/ILLUSTRATION UNSPLASH/Sajad Nori

JAKARTA - Iran's parliament says the country refuses to continue nuclear negotiations with the United States until prerequisites are met.

"When the US uses negotiations as a tool to deceive Iran and cover up a sudden military attack by the Zionist regime (Israel), negotiations cannot be carried out as before. The prerequisites must be established and no new negotiations can be carried out until the prerequisites are fully met", the statement was quoted as saying by Iranian state media reports as reported by Reuters on Wednesday, July 16.

The statement did not explain the prerequisites, but Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi previously said there had to be a guarantee there would be no further attack on Tehran.

Israel and the US launched attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities last month, saying the facility was part of a program aimed at developing nuclear weapons. Tehran insists that its nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes.

Tehran and Washington have held five rounds of indirect negotiations mediated by Oman before the 12-day air war, with US demands that Tehran stop its domestic uranium enrichment program at a stalemate.

Last week, Araghchi reiterated Tehran's position, they would not agree to a nuclear deal preventing uranium enrichment and would refuse to discuss non-nuclear topics such as its ballistic missile program.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he was not in a hurry to negotiate with Iran because his nuclear site has now been "destroyed", but the US, coordinating with three European countries, has agreed to set the end of August as a deadline for reaching an agreement.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Paris, London, and Berlin would trigger a UN sanctions snapshotback mechanism, which would reimpose international sanctions against Iran, by the end of August if no concrete progress was made on the deal.