IRGC official rejects direct talks with US

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Shahr-e Kord, Dec 31, IRNA -- Supreme Leader's deputy representative at Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Hojatoleslam Abdollah Haji Sadeghi, here on Sunday, called direct talks with US against the nation's interests.

He made the remarks at a gathering of IRGC local officials in Southwestern province of Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari.

'Soft war and deviating the young from the principles and making them indifferent about the country and system's future are parts of the enemy's anti-Iranian plots.'

Haji Sadeghi underlined that economic sanctions are also another part of the enemy pressure tools against the Islamic Republic.

'Enemy wants Iranian nation and government desperate and passive; US aims to bring Iran to the negotiation table by proposing the direct talks and therefore, declare Tehran's defeat in confronting the Washington.'

He underlined that US aims to break Iranian nation's resistance towards Washington's illegal demands.

'Iran's revolution has been inspiring for the regional Islamic movements and this has worried the dominant powers.'

The United States and Iran broke diplomatic relations in April 1980, after Iranian students seized the United States' espionage center at its embassy in Tehran. The two countries have had tense relations ever since, but have shown willingness to attend talks to help resolve regional issues, including security in Iraq. Yet, the two countries have avoided talks on bilateral issues for the last thirty years.

In March, White House tried to offer an olive branch to Iran and repair strained ties of nearly three decades. Tehran, meanwhile, said it would only consider the promise after seeing practical changes in the US policies.

Tehran has been under Washington sanctions after the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled a US-backed monarch in the country.

The two countries' relations deteriorated following Iran's progress in the field of civilian nuclear technology. Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.

Also during the 2009 post-election events in Iran, Iranian officials found a number of documents as well as a series of confessions extracted from the detainees substantiating US attempts to stir unrests in the country.

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