Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said there is no backchannel communication between Tehran and Washington.
In an interview with NBC on Tuesday, journalist and news anchor Lester Holt asked Larijani whether he could confirm such forms of talks between the Islamic Republic and the US.
“I don’t confirm this. There is no backchannel communication,” Larijani told Holt, who is visiting Iran.
The Amrican journalist has already held several interviews with senior Iranian officials including Foreign Minister Zarif, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, CBI Governor Hemmati, and Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani.
Larijani, meanwhile, said Iran accepted President Obama’s offer for talks because we felt that Obama was following some principles in his policies.
“He was our enemy but was a wise enemy. And it’s easier to interact with a wise enemy,” Larijani told the NBC, as cited by Mehr news agency.
Furthermore, the Iranian parliament speaker reiterated that if the US wants to talk with Iran, it needs first to come back to the nuclear deal and bargaining table.
US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in May 2018 while all International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports indicated that Iran was complying with the 2015 accord.
Washington then imposed sanctions on Iran in what is called a ‘maximum pressure campaign’, targeting Iran’s oil sales at its core.
One year after US withdrawal, Iran announced that it is reducing commitments to the deal since the agreement needs a balance and that a multilateral deal cannot be implemented unilaterally.
Washington claims that it is ready for talks but Iran says these claims proved to be empty.
Source: Iranian media
