US rejected offer as ‘not seeking dialogue’: Iran

Iran said yesterday the US had rejected an offer from Tehran for more robust nuclear inspections in exchange for lifting sanctions because Washington is “not seeking dialogue”.

Under the 2015 nuclear deal agreed to by Tehran, Iran must ratify a document, known as the additional protocol, prescribing more intrusive inspections of its nuclear programme eight years after the deal was adopted.

“If the US is really seeking an agreement... Iran can make the additional protocol into law (in 2019) and (the US) at the same time bring a plan to the Congress and lift all illegal sanctions,” said foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi.

“But as we predicted it was rejected by them, because we knew that they are not for talks or an agreement that would yield a proper result,” he told a news conference.

According to Mousavi, the proposal was made by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during a visit this month in New York to dismiss the idea of “Iran being against talks... (while) America is for dialogue”.

Meanwhile, Britain yesterday ruled out swapping seized oil tankers with Iran as a second UK warship arrived in the Gulf to conduct convoys that have irritated Tehran.

A sense of crisis in the world’s busiest oil shipping lane has been building up for weeks as Iran responds to US President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign.

The US economic sanctions and stepped-up military presence are designed to force Iran to renegotiate a landmark 2015 nuclear pact from which Trump pulled out last year.