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Iran has no intention to meet Trump, foreign minister says

"We need to wait to see how the new US administration will formulate and implement its policy, and only then will we formulate our own policy," Abbas Araghchi explained

DOHA, December 4. /TASS/. Iran’s authorities have no intention of engaging in talks with US President-elect Donald Trump until the new US administration clearly develops its policy, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated in an interview with the Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper.

"At the moment, we have no intention of engaging in negotiations because there is no basis for such a dialogue. We need to wait to see how the new US administration will formulate and implement its policy, and only then will we formulate our own policy," said Araghchi, responding to a question about Iran’s intention to negotiate with Trump during his second presidential term. "The new US administration has not yet been formed, it has not announced its position, and it is unclear whether it wants to undo the damage from the previous administration’s actions or not," he noted.

In 2018, Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was signed with Iran by the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany in 2015 to resolve the crisis over Iran's nuclear program. Since April 2021, Russia, China, the US, the UK, Germany, and France held negotiations with Iran about restoring the deal, which ended to no avail in 2022.

In response to the US withdrawal from the JCPOA, the Iranian parliament passed a law in 2020 titled "Strategic Actions to Lift Sanctions and Protect the Interests of the Iranian People." Under this law, Tehran reduced its nuclear deal commitments, including halting inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) beyond the scope of the safeguards agreement under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty between the IAEA and the Islamic Republic, prohibiting stringent monitoring measures.

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