Iran Says Not Interested in Talks with US

Parinoosh Arami, Reuters:

Iran said on Sunday it had no interest in talking to its arch-foe the United States concerning events in Iraq or about its nuclear programme. Media reports last month quoted U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad as saying he had been authorised by President George W. Bush to begin a dialogue with Iran about Iraq. READ MORE

U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei has also suggested lately that Washington would eventually have to get directly involved in negotiations to resolve Tehran's nuclear standoff with the West.

But Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said talks with U.S. officials were "not on our agenda".

"The issue of security in Iraq is an internal matter related to the Iraqis," he told a weekly news conference.

"The Iraqi people are mature and wise and they should determine their own future. So there is no need for negotiations with America," he said.

He added that Iran had not received any formal proposal for talks on Iraq from Washington, which broke diplomatic ties with Tehran shortly after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

Regarding U.S. involvement in negotiations over Tehran's nuclear programme, which Washington believes to be a covert attempt to build atomic arms, Asefi said Iran disagreed with ElBaradei's view.

"There is no need for such negotiations because we believe that one of the reasons that further complicated the issue was U.S. ... intervention," he said.

Iran says its nuclear programme will never be used to make weapons.

Fresh nuclear negotiations between Iran and the European Union are expected to take place in coming weeks, although Asefi said a date and place had not yet been set.

"We are not going to bargain at the negotiations. We want to achieve our right which is to have nuclear technology," he said.

The EU wants Iran to accept a proposal under which the most sensitive part of the nuclear fuel cycle, uranium enrichment, is carried out under a joint venture in Russia.

But Iranian officials have said they will not accept any deal which prohibits Tehran from carrying out the full range of nuclear activities on its own soil.