i24news - Iran's top diplomat said still willing to talk to US if sanctions lifted

US President Donald Trump has rebuffed the offer of fresh nuclear talks from Tehran on the condition of sanctions removal.

In his Sunday's tweet, the US president responded to the suggestion with a simple '"No, thanks!".

The comments came after Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif spoke to the German Der Spiegel magazine, suggesting that Iran was still open to talks with the US, granted that the restrictions would be lifted.

"The Trump administration can correct its past, lift the sanctions and come back to the negotiating table," he said, adding that it was the US who walked away from it.

The Trump administration re-imposed the sanctions on Iran after withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal, seeing it as inefficient as it did little to curb Iran's ballistic missile program or support for regional proxies.

This prompted Iran to start walking back on its own commitments under the accord, to which France, Germany and the UK eventually responded by activating the deal's dispute resolution mechanism.

In Saturday's report, as cited by Reuters, Iran's nuclear chief said that Tehran had the capacity to enrich uranium at any percentage if willing, including, apparently, weapons-grade enrichment.

He also said that the country's stock of uranium has surpassed 1,200 kilograms, and it will be enriched quickly; under the 2015 deal, however, Iran's enriched uranium stock was capped at 300 kilograms.