Iran said on Saturday (April 18) it was still not ready to enter a new round of face-to-face talks with the United States, with Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh accusing Washington of refusing to drop what Tehran sees as “maximalist” demands on key issues.
Speaking in an interview with The Associated Press on the sidelines of a diplomacy forum in Turkey, Khatibzadeh said the two sides had exchanged many messages, but no in-person meeting would take place until a “framework agreement” was finalised.
“We are still not there yet to move on to an actual meeting because there are issues that the Americans have not yet abandoned their maximalist position,” Khatibzadeh said.
He also dismissed suggestions that Iran would hand over its enriched uranium to the United States, directly rejecting remarks made by President Donald Trump.
“I can tell you that no enriched material is going to be shipped to the United States,” Khatibzadeh said. “This is a non-starter, and I can assure you that while we are ready to address any concerns that we do have, we’re not going to accept things that are nonstarters.”
On Friday, Trump said the United States would enter Iran and “get all the nuclear dust”, referring to 970 pounds (440 kilograms) of enriched uranium believed to be buried beneath nuclear sites heavily damaged by US military strikes last year.