Iran Leader Sets Condition for Talks with US

“If the US takes back its word, repents and returns to the nuclear deal it violated, then it may join other JCPOA parties’ talks with Iran. Otherwise, there will be no negotiation at any level between Iranian and American officials, neither in New York nor elsewhere,” the Leader said on Tuesday.

His comments came amid speculations regarding a possible meeting between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his US counterpart Donald Trump on the sidelines of the upcoming session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

“Now you are seeing that the Americans keep pursuing the issue of holding talks. This is a ploy. Everybody should know this and pay attention,” said the Leader.

Ayatollah Khamenei noted that Washington keeps changing its words.

“Sometimes they speak of unconditional talks, sometimes talks without preconditions, and sometimes talks with twelve conditions. Now, either their policy is really a chaotic one and they don’t know what they want, which may be the case, or it could be that they are using this as a ploy,” he said.

“One of the ploys is that one person says one thing, and the other says another thing in order to confuse the other party,” Ayatollah Khamenei noted.

“But we won’t get confused,” said the Leader, adding, “We know what we are doing.”

He said Washington’s proposal of talks does not mean that the US is seeking a fair solution, but means that the White House wants Iran to accept whatever it says, “and they have become so impudent that they say this openly.”

Elsewhere in his remarks, Ayatollah Khamenei touched upon the United States’ “maximum pressure” policy against Iran.

“The US government’s policy is to exert maximum pressure on Iran in the form of different sanctions, threats and nonsense comments,” the Leader noted.

However, Ayatollah Khamenei said, the Americans and their allies have admitted that the “maximum pressure” policy has failed to bring Iran to its knees.