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Judiciary official: Iran not to attend talks with US under pressure

Iran Materials 8 November 2012 00:13 (UTC +04:00)

Secretary of Iran's Human Rights Council Mohammad Javad Larijani said pressures won't be able to push Tehran towards talks with the US, and meantime, expressed doubt about the West's seriousness about talks with Iran based on mutual respect and fairness, Fars News reported.

"Negotiation with the US due to pressure is not acceptable to us," Larijani said in the Northern city of Anzali on Wednesday, adding that such talks with Washington should be the result of a "strategy" if Tehran ever accepts to sit to the negotiating table with the US.

He underlined that any negotiations with the US should "serve Iran's interests", and added that the only one who can make decision about talks with Washington is the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.

"Negotiations with the US should go under contemplation while having the country's interests in mind; in that case will negotiate with anyone under the supervision of the Leader," Mohammad Javad Larijani said.

Larijani voiced skepticism about the West's seriousness about talks with Iran.

The western countries consider the Islamic Revolution as a dangerous phenomenon and Iran as the most influential country in the Middle-East, hence their animosity towards Tehran is not something that can be removed by joking at the negotiating table, he said.

The judiciary chief said the US officials should not think that they can blackmail the Iranian nation at the negotiating table.

"Relations with the US are not easy and after all the US pressures and crimes against the Iranian people, such relations are not possible (to establish) overnight," Amoli Larijani said in Tehran on Wednesday.

"The Americans should not imagine that they can blackmail our nation by sitting at the negotiating table with Iran," he added.

Meantime, Amoli Larijani noted the possibility of bilateral talks between Tehran and Washington, and said negotiations with Iran would benefit the US.

"...the US will start to be wise only when it manages to win the Iranian nation's trust", he added.

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.

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