Tehran, in the message, has strongly dismissed any involvement in Yemeni raids, also warning of any anti-Iranian measure after the incident.

The message condemned remarks of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo along with other US officials against Iran, warning that in case of any aggression against the Islamic Republic, Iran’s response will be prompt and strong and it may include broader areas than the source of attacks.

Yemen’s forces have claimed responsibility for the attack on two Saudi Aramco oil facilities on Saturday, but the United States has rejected their claim and President Donald Trump has said that Iran appeared to be responsible for the strike.

On Saturday, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said the US should mull bombing Iranian oil refineries. “It is now time for the US to put on the table an attack on Iranian oil refineries if they continue their provocations or increase nuclear enrichment,” the war-mongering senator from South Carolina said.

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The Iranian people have paid the cost of resistance and arrived at this conclusion that they have to wait for the country to pass this stage, he added.

“Exactly when the resistance has worked and we have to take the third step in reducing our commitments to JCPOA, which includes increasing uranium enrichment to 20%, the strategy of compromise and negotiation has been raised again,” the principalist politician added.

“Those who talk about negotiations are sure that resistance will attain victory in this stage and lead to US withdrawal but they are trying to pull the rug from under resistance’s feet.”

“We are not against negotiations,” he highlighted, adding, “We talked with America in a period and they retreated. Even today, if US returns to its commitments [under JCPOA], the Islamic Republic may come to this conclusion continue negotiations.”

The United States unilaterally pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal back in May 2018, imposing sanctions on Tehran. Iran still remains in the deal but one year after US withdrawal, officials announced that the country is reducing commitments to JCPOA in a step-by-step approach, asking other parties to the deal to stick to their commitments and safeguard Iran’s economic interests in face of US pressures.

Iran insists that there will be no talks with US unless it lifts all the sanctions.

“We’ve said it before time and again, and we say it again: We have no intention to hold bilateral talks with the United States. We never did and never will. It has been the case in the past year and a half, and even in previous years. There have been calls for talks, but we never responded to them,” the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in a Parliament session on Tuesday.

“When we talk about negotiations, we only mean it under the situation where all sanctions have been lifted; that is, the situation we previously had under the JCPOA. Our stance is clear,” Rouhani stressed.

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“General policies about the US are crystal clear: conducting negotiations with the evil is poisonous,” he added.

Some of Iranian officials, including Rezaie, have made some remarks in reaction to those made by President Rouhani regarding talks with the US.

As reported, members of the Iranian Parliament are signing a statement that condemns and bans any kind of negotiations with the US.

According to the statement, holding negotiations with the US under the current situation and given the US’ withdrawal from the nuclear deal, will be harmful to the interests of the Iranian nation and thus, is condemned and prohibited.

President Rouhani, speaking on Monday at a local event, said the key to “positive developments” is in the hands of Washington, stressing that the only way for the current situation to change is if the US removed all sanctions against Iran.

Tensions started to build up between the US and Iran after President Trump withdrew Washington from the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May 2018, and imposed sanctions against Tehran in a bid to restrict the country’s trade transactions with the world. The Trump administration has been making empty calls for talks, but the Islamic Republic stresses that as long as sanctions are in place and the US refuses to return to the JCPOA, negotiations will be meaningless.

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The remarks came as the United States is enhancing its military presence in the Persian Gulf region after it adopted a maximum pressure policy against Iran. The Trump administration has taken numerous hostile actions against Iran during the past two years, including imposing unilateral sanctions, designating IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, and most recently, trying to form a coalition in the region which it claims to be aimed at securing shipping in the Hormuz Strait but believed to be a force against Iran.

“We are proud of giving a response to others’ bullying behavior and achieving victory. No one ever thought that we could take down a US drone and they [Americans] fail to show reaction or that they seize our ship [oil tanker Grace 1] and then forced to release it,” Kharrazi also said.

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He underlined that no European country, even UK, has announced readiness to accompany Trump in sanctioning Zarif.

The Arab analyst noted that the US sanctions on Zarif were imposed simultaneous with the time that the Iranian minister rejected Americans’ invitation for holding talks over the crises.

Trump thinks that the Iranian leader and officials are similar to those in some of US-allied Arab countries, who crave for taking photos with Trump in the White House, but governments with high dignity [that of Iran] respect religious values and do not lean towards the US under tough sanctions, he added.

Trump is entrapped in Iran-US relation crisis and does not know how to get out of the predicament, he said, Iran rejects mediators and has even shot down one of the American drones. It has restarted its nuclear activities and continues testing ballistic missiles, he said.

It is not far from mind that the US’ sanctions on Zarif was a response to the seizure of the American drone by Iran, he underlined.

The administration of Trump imposed sanctions on Zarif on Wednesday, saying in its statement that Zarif is Iran’s “primary spokesperson around the world,” and that the ban “is sending a clear message that Iran’s “recent behavior is completely unacceptable.”

Meanwhile, the European Union said Thursday it regrets the US decision to impose sanctions against Iran’s foreign minister and vowed to continue working with him.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns the US administration’s move to impose sanction on Zarif, director of Iran’s diplomacy, and sees the measure as a clear sign of the US administration’s frustration, said the MFA’s statement on Thursday.

The new US sanction reveals its administration’s fear and weakness vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic of Iran’s smart diplomacy which is based upon logic, the statement added.

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Mousavi was referring to restrictions imposed on movements of the Iranian delegation, headed by Foreign Minister Zarif, in New York while attending a UN meeting in the past six days. Washington just allowed the Iranian diplomats to travel between the United Nations HQ, the Iranian UN mission, the Iranian UN ambassador’s residence and John F. Kennedy airport.

“These paradoxes in words and actions of Americans are clear for international observers. Result of negotiation with such a country is crystal clear,” Mousavi added.

US President Donald Trump claimed that he is ready for ‘unconditional’ talks with Tehran. On the other hand, Iranian officials say that the window of diplomacy is not closed but US, first, needs to return to the bargaining table and abide by its commitments under the nuclear deal.

Mousavi went on to say that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was the ‘best’ possible agreement between Iran and other parties, adding that US behavior has been unacceptable. “As long as America doesn’t return to the nuclear deal and abide by its commitments, this trend will continue.”

President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the multilateral UN-endorsed JCPOA in May 2018, imposing severe sanctions on Iran’s economy despite the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency had endorsed Iran’s compliance to the deal. Tehran has described US measures as ‘economic terrorism’, urging other signatories to the deal to shield its economy from damages of US sanctions.

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“This worries us because this is happening near our borders. This may destabilize the situation around Iran, affect some countries with which we have very close relations, causing additional refugee flows on a large scale plus substantially damage the world economy as well as the global energy sector,” Putin said.

“We would welcome any improvement when it comes to relations between the US and Iran. A simple escalation of tension will not be advantageous for anyone. It seems to me that this is also the case with the US,” he added.

Tension has been building higher between Iran and the US ever since Donald Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) on May 2018, and re-imposed sanctions on Iran, also threatening countries and companies that do business with Tehran with secondary sanctions.

The US has continued with what it describes as a ‘maximum pressure’ policy against Iran, which has led to a further deterioration of the situation in the Middle East region.

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“Surely AP reporters are familiar enough with conversational English to know and understand and are able to contextualize comments on the hypothetical, as well as parrying with words to make a point. Drawing a false conclusion in pursuit of headlines, when what was said in the context was obvious, only leads to a diminution of the standing of the press with the public,” he also added.

The remarks came as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed on Tuesday that Tehran was willing to discuss their ballistic missile program. According to CNN, State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus couldn’t clarify what Pompeo’s comments were based on, saying, “I think he was responding” to a media report that Iran subsequently appeared to reject.

Tehran has always stressed that its missile program along with its defense power is non-negotiable.

Also, in a Tuesday tweet, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi described Foreign Minister Zarif’s remark in the interview with NBC as ‘precise and clever’, adding that the minister’s answer “throw the ball in US’s court and also instead of having a defensive stance, challenged the issue of arms sales to regional countries. The stance of Iran and Mohammad Javad Zarif on the country’s missile capabilities are clear.”

In his interview, Zarif said that room for negotiation with US is “wide open” if US stops sanctions and comes back to the bargaining table. Then when asked about the possibility of talks over Iran’s missile program, Zarif said, “Let’s all start with we already agreed, let us see what we can do and then if you want to discuss ballistic missiles, then we need to discuss the amount of weapons sold to our region. Last year Iran spent $16bn all together on its military, we have an 82 million population …  The United Arab Emirates with a million population spent $22bn. Saudi Arabia with less than half of our population spent $67bn, most of them are American. These are American weaponry that is going into our region, making our region ready to explode. So if they want to talk about our missiles, they need first to stop selling all these weapons including missiles to our region.”

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The ceremony was attended by Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami, and CEO of Iran Air (HOMA), Touraj Dehghani-Zangeneh.

The Iran Air Flight 655 was an Airbus A300B2 civilian aircraft flying in Iranian airspace over the Strait of Hormuz from the port city of Bandar Abbas to Dubai, carrying 274 passengers and 16 crew members on July 3, 1988, when a US Navy guided-missile cruiser, USS Vincennes, fired missiles at it, killing all the 290 onboard.

US officials claimed the warship had mistaken the passenger plane for a warplane, even though the warship was equipped with highly advanced radar systems and electronic battle gear at the time of the attack.

US did not admit legal liability or formally apologize to Iran. In fact, a year later, the captain of the USS Vincennes, William C. Rogers, was cleared of any wrongdoing in the incident, and was even awarded America’s Legion of Merit medal by then President George Bush for his “outstanding service.”

The US behavior towards the Iranians and other nations shows the country has been committing inhumane acts to achieve its “ominous objectives” and using human rights as a pretext to pursue its “excessive demands and illegitimate interests,” Iranian Foreign Ministry had said in a statement on the 30th anniversary of the incident.

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“The Islamic Republic of Iran is engaged in a strategic confrontation with the US-Zionist-Saudi coalition over maintaining stability and also the position of regional power,” he said.

Iran doesn’t seek war but is ready to strongly defend the country against any threat and aggression, he said, adding, “if a conflict occurs in the region, its duration and extent cannot be managed by any country.”

“Regional countries’ interests are interconnected and it’s not possible to portion out war and peace. Either we all move on the path of stability or the [whole] region will be plunged into war and instability due to [both] US’s interventionist policies and the provocations of certain countries.”

Tensions grew between Tehran and Washington when a US spy drone intruded into Iranian airspace on Thursday and was then brought down by IRGC air defense systems.

“Words are not enough to prevent a war; appropriate behavior and resolve are required,” added the commander.

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