Iran foreign minister says no plans for direct nuclear talks with US

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Tehran is insisting on indirect talks with the US on its nuclear program due to concerns that Washington would use direct talks to impose pressure or use threats to reach its goals, and says there are no plans for the talks to become direct in the future.

Speaking to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency from Algeria, Araghchi also says Tehran is willing to make “confidence-building” concessions in exchange for sanctions relief.

“Our main goal in the talks is naturally restoring the rights of people as well as lifting sanctions and if the other side has a real will, this is achievable, and it has no relation to the method, either direct or indirect,” Araghchi says.

“For the time being, indirect is our preference. And we have no plan to alter it to direct.”

Araghchi also says Tehran will not follow a so-called Libyan model, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred on Monday to the northern African country’s 2003 decision to fully dismantle its program in the face of Western threats, despite not receiving any security or financial concessions.

Netanyahu, who has opposed nuclear talks with Iran, said during an Oval Office visit Monday that an agreement “the way it was done in Libya… would be a good thing.”

“That will never come true,” Araghchi says.