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US Repeatedly Invited Tehran to Resume Talks - Iranian Security Council

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani has stated that representatives of the US administration had invited Iran to resume negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal on numerous occasions.
Sputnik

"When I was in Afghanistan, the Americans offered us two times to restart negotiations with Iran", Shamkhani said as quoted by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), adding that the US officials were lying when they claimed that it was Iran that acted as an initiator of such talks.

According to Shamkhani, Iran was not interested in engaging in talks with a country that is not logical in its approach toward negotiations.

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Relations between the two countries have seriously worsened over the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, which led to a number of sanctions targeting Iranian energy and economy sectors.  

The US has made a series of accusations of Iran. In January, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called it the "world's foremost state sponsor of terror," accusing Tehran of sharing missiles and missile technology with its "proxies" in the Middle East, in violation of Resolution 2231.

In early November, Washington imposed sanctions targeting core sectors of Iran's economy.

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Trump announced in May that the United States was withdrawing from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known as the Iran nuclear deal, and reimposing its sanctions against Tehran that had been lifted under the agreement. The first package of the US restrictions came into force in August. Washington's decision was not supported by other signatories to the deal — China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the European Union — which insisted that Iran respected its part of the deal.

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