Iran will under no circumstances hold talks with the United States, Hossein Dehghan, the military adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, said on Tuesday, APA reports citing the Fars News Agency.
Dehghan stated that Iran could never hold talks with those who had killed a state representative during his official visit to another country. He added that everyone in the region wanted safety but the US could not ensure it.
He also apologized for Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s statement, in which the latter had claimed that Tehran might come to the negotiating table with Washington.
In a recent interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, Zarif commented that "the Trump administration can correct its past, lift the sanctions and come back to the negotiating table." "We’re still at the negotiating table," the Iranian top diplomat added.
Tensions in the Middle East escalated following a US drone strike near Baghdad's airport on January 3, which killed Commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani. On January 8, Iran targeted Iraq’s Ain Al-Asad air base and a facility in Erbil, which house US troops, in retaliation for the drone attack.