Agencies London

The US must rule out any further strikes on Iran if it wants to resume diplomatic talks, Tehran’s deputy foreign minister has told the BBC. Majid Takht-Ravanchi said the Trump administration told Iran through mediators it wanted to return to negotiations this week, but had not made its position clear on the “very important question” of further attacks while talks are taking place. 

The US and Iran were involved in talks over Iran’s nuclear programme when Israel struck Iranian nuclear sites and military infrastructure earlier this month and Iran responded with missiles. The US became directly involved in the conflict on 21 June when it bombed three of Iran’s nuclear sites. Takht-Ravanchi also said Iran would “insist” on being able to enrich uranium for what it says are peaceful purposes, rejecting accusations it is secretly moving towards developing a nuclear bomb.

He said Iran had been “denied access to nuclear material” for its research programme so they needed “to rely on ourselves”. “The level of that can be discussed, the capacity can be discussed, but to say that you should not have enrichment, you should have zero enrichment, and if do you not agree, we will bomb you — that is the law of the jungle,” the minister said. On Monday, Iran said, based on the latest forensics data, 935 people had been killed by the Israeli strikes.