DUBAI: Iran rejected French calls for wider international talks over its nuclear and military ambitions, saying on Friday it would only discuss it existing 2015 atomic pact with world powers, state TV reported.
French President Emmanuel Macron had said a day earlier that Paris and Washington both wanted to stop Tehran getting nuclear arms and new talks should focus on curbing its ballistic missiles program and on other issues.
But Iran’s foreign ministry said it would not hold any discussions beyond the 2015 pact which US President Donald Trump abandoned last year as he pressed for tougher restrictions.
“Under this circumstances, talking about issues beyond the deal ... will lead to further mistrust among the remaining signatories of the deal,” foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in a statement.
The United States pulled out of the 2015 agreement — under which Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear work in exchange for sanctions relief- saying it did was not permanent and did not do enough to control Iran’s missiles and regional influence.
France and other European signatories to the deal have said they wanted to save it, but many of their companies have canceled deals with Tehran, under financial pressure from the United States.
“The Europeans have so far failed to fulfill their commitments under the deal and ... to protect Iran’s interests after America’s illegal withdrawal,” Mousavi added in his statement, according to state TV.
Trump said on Thursday that Iran was failing as a nation, under the pressure of his sanctions, and repeated his call for talks with the leadership in Tehran.
Mousavi dismissed Trump’s comments as “repetitive, groundless and paradoxical” and said they did not merit a response.
Iran’s top authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has dismissed Washington’s call for negotiations.
However, Iran’s pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani has signaled Iran’s willingness to hold talks if the US showed its respect and returned to the nuclear accord.
Iran rejects French call for wider talks beyond nuclear deal
Iran rejects French call for wider talks beyond nuclear deal
- Iran’s foreign ministry said it would not hold any discussions beyond the 2015 pact
- Iran’s top authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has dismissed earlier Washington’s call for negotiations
Palestinian NGO condemns Israeli act of ‘revenge’ after prisoner abuse video
- A Palestinian NGO has denounced what it called an Israeli act of revenge after a video showed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir overseeing the abuse of detainees in a military prison
RAMALLAH: A Palestinian NGO has denounced what it called an Israeli act of revenge after a video showed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir overseeing the abuse of detainees in a military prison.
Just days before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Ben Gvir held a tour of Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s Channel 7 reported.
In footage filmed on Friday and broadcast by the channel, around 20 police officers are seen storming a hallway leading to prison cells, brandishing their weapons and firing stun grenades.
They then pull five detainees from their cells, their hands tied behind their backs, forcing them face-down onto the floor.
The operation took place as a bill proposing the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners convicted of terrorism awaited a final vote in the Israeli parliament.
“This is all part of ongoing displays meant to take revenge on Palestinian detainees,” Abdallah al?Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, told AFP on Saturday.
“Everything Ben Gvir and the far?right government are doing affects not only the Palestinian people and prisoners in detention camps — it also impacts the global legal and human rights system,” he added.
Ben Gvir, known for his inflammatory rhetoric, is considered one of the most hard-line members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.
“It is simply a source of pride — arriving at a prison like this, a prison for terrorists, the vilest of the vile, seeing them like this,” Ben Gvir said in the video.
“I want one more thing: to execute them — the death penalty for terrorists,” he added.
Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Saturday said the remarks were “a new war crime and a blatant challenge to international humanitarian law regarding prisoners.”
International rights groups have repeatedly warned of alleged abuse and mistreatment inflicted in Israeli prisons since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
While the death penalty exists for a small number of crimes in Israel, it has become a de facto abolitionist country, with the Nazi Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann the last person to be executed in 1962.
