IRAN’S NEW PRESIDENT REJECTS ANY MEETING WITH BIDEN

Iranian president-elect Ebrahim Raisi has declined any meeting with US President Joe Biden so long as US sanctions remain in place, and also spoke out against a full renegotiation of the 2015 nuclear deal that prompted some of those sanctions, Farshad Motahari and Can Merey reported for Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).

During his first press conference after his recent election win, Raisi said he could not imagine meeting Biden, saying the US president had ignored the 2015 nuclear deal by supporting "inhuman sanctions" against the Iranian population.

"Biden has to lift the sanctions first to make the United States look credible again in Iran," Raisi said. But White House spokesperson Jen Psaki pointed out on Monday that the US had no diplomatic relations with Iran and there were no plans for top-level meetings, so it was unclear whether anything had changed at all.

Psaki said with regard to the future of the nuclear agreement, from the US perspective, the decision in this area lies with Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Raisi won Friday's presidential elections with 60 percent of the vote. He was the top candidate of the hardliners' camp. Raisi also spoke out against the complete renegotiation of the 2015 Vienna nuclear deal.

"The Americans have not honored an agreement they signed. Now they are asking us to renegotiate it as well," Raisi said, calling this impossible.

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