Iranian president: ‘Situation is not suitable for talks’ with US

Current conditions are “not suitable” for Tehran-Washington talks, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday amid mounting tensions between the nations, according to Reuters.

“Today’s situation is not suitable for talks and our choice is resistance only,” Rouhani said, according to the state news agency IRNA.

{mosads}Rouhani also said the Iranian government should have increased economic powers amid ongoing tensions, akin to those it was given during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, according to Reuters.

U.S. officials have said they are attempting to bring Iranian leaders to the table to negotiate a new arms control deal to replace the 2015 deal the U.S. withdrew from in 2018.

Iran, which recently scaled back its own commitments under the deal on the anniversary of the American withdrawal, said it will not engage in further talks while the U.S. is outside of the deal.

“In no earlier period have we faced today’s problems in banking and oil sales, so we need everyone to concentrate and feel the conditions of economic war,” Rouhani said, according to IRNA.

President Trump restored U.S. sanctions on Iran in 2017 and tightened them this May, saying any country importing Iranian oil would face sanctions themselves.

US-Iranian tensions have ratcheted up in recent weeks, with the U.S. deploying a carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf in response to unspecified threats from Iran. Trump has vowed that a war would lead to “the official end of Iran.”

Last week, the State Department pulled nonemergency U.S. personnel from Iraq, citing unspecified threats from Iran-allied militia groups in the nation. House Democrats are set to hear testimony today on Iran from former CIA Director John Brennan, who has been a frequent critic of Trump’s.