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Thursday April 18, 2024

Iran denies talks with EU over missile programme

By Xinhua
May 27, 2018

TEHRAN: Iran on Saturday denied reports that it will negotiate with the European Union (EU) over the country’s ballistic missile programme, Tasnim news agency reported.

Such reports and lies are parts of “a psychological operation” by Israel, Tasnim cited Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif as saying.

“We have said times and again that we are merely negotiating about the JCPOA and have no demands or words beyond it,” he said.

The JCPOA refers to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed in 2015 between Iran and six major powers including Britain, France, Russia, China, the U.S. and Germany.

“The EU itself denied the reports” about missile talks too, Zarif added.

On Friday, Iran and five other parties to the deal, namely Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany, held a meeting in the Austrian capital of Vienna to discuss the future of the nuclear deal after the U.S. withdrawal.

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and a senior nuclear negotiator, said following the meeting that the Islamic republic will decide whether to stay in the nuclear deal, following a series of negotiations at different levels over the next few weeks.