TEHRAN, June 30 — A delegation comprising Iranian experts will visit Qatar this week to pursue the release of Iran’s frozen assets, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said Monday.
Baghaei said the concurrent visit by senior U.S. officials to Doha has nothing to do with the Iranian delegation’s trip, as Iran will not hold talks at any level with the United States in the coming days, read a statement released by the Iranian Foreign Ministry.
Baghaei said Iran and the United States have not yet entered the stage of starting negotiations to reach a final agreement, which can begin only after the implementation of key provisions of the recently signed memorandum of understanding (MoU), including ending conflict on all fronts, lifting the U.S. naval blockade, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, issuing U.S. waivers for Iran’s crude oil exports, and releasing Iranian frozen assets.
Iran’s current priority is to ensure the implementation of those provisions, he said, adding, “We are pursuing our demands with seriousness.” Baghaei said the United States has issued necessary permissions for Iran’s crude oil exports, and Iran is following up on the matter.
In an interview with state-run IRIB TV on Sunday, Mehdi Fazaeli, a member of the Office of Preservation and Publication of the Works of the Iran’s Supreme Leader, said Iran-U.S. technical negotiations had been scheduled to begin on the same day, but were canceled by the Iranian side due to U.S. strikes against Iran over the preceding two nights, and to Washington’s delay in meeting some of Tehran’s conditions under the MoU.
Over the weekend, the United States conducted airstrikes on Iranian military targets, citing “continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping” in the Strait of Hormuz, while Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps fired ballistic missiles and drones at U.S. military facilities in Kuwait and Bahrain. (Namibia Daily News / Xinhua)
