Iran’s new Parliament Speaker rejects talks with US as ‘futile’

The new Speaker of the Iranian Shura Council, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf yesterday rejected negotiations with the United States, describing them as “futile”.

“The new Shura Council considers negotiating with America; the global axis of arrogance to be futile, even harmful,” Qalibaf said in his first major speech.

“The only communication with Washington would be to complete the chain of revenge for the blood of the martyr Soleimani (…) by the total expulsion of the terrorist American army from the region,” he said.

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Relations between Tehran and Washington have deteriorated since the US unilaterally withdrew in May 2018 from the 2015 nuclear agreement signed between the world powers and Iran and imposed “unprecedented” sanctions previously lifted under the agreement.

Tensions between the two countries reached their peak in early January, when the US assassinated Qasem Soleimani, leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force, in a drone attack in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

Days later, Iran responded by firing missiles at bases that include US troops in Iraq.