Iran Avoids Talks with US Because Washington Disrespects its Independence

Iran would not sit to the negotiating table with any side or country that does not respect the dignity and independence of the Iranian nation, senior MP Gholam Ali Haddad Adel said about the possibility of Iran’s talks with the US.

“The negotiating table where the Iranian nation’s dignity and independence are not respected, that negotiation is not acceptable,” Haddad Adel said in the Northern city of Sari on Friday night.

“We want fair negotiations within the framework of the international criteria,” he said, adding that Tehran will negotiate with a country which respects the Iranian people.

“We negotiate with those who respect the Iranian people,” he reiterated.

“If they intend to negotiate with us on the basis of the carrot-and-stick policy, this won’t be negotiation,” he underlined.

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.

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 stoke unrests in the country.