US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he is in "no rush" to talk with Iran after last month's strikes on nuclear facilities but that Tehran was hoping to engage in discussions with the Americans.
"They would like to talk. I'm in no rush to talk because we obliterated their site," Mr Trump said after returning to Washington following a trip to Pittsburgh, referring to US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites last month.
Iran said on Monday that it will not resume nuclear talks with the US if negotiations are conditional on halting its uranium enrichment activities, state news agency Irna reported.
Tehran and Washington held several rounds of negotiations aimed at reviving a nuclear deal, but those efforts were derailed after Israel launched strikes on Iran in June, triggering 12 days of war.
After a ceasefire was announced ending the war, Mr Trump signalled interest in returning to the negotiating table. However, Tehran has remained firm that it will not relinquish its right to the peaceful use of nuclear power.
Mr Trump is set to meet Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on Wednesday to discuss efforts to achieve a nuclear agreement, Axios reported. Qatar has previously mediated between the two sides.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the UK agreed during a phone call on Monday to set the end of August as the de facto deadline for reaching a nuclear deal with Iran, Axios reported, quoting three sources.
If no new nuclear deal is reached by that deadline, the three European powers plan to trigger the "snapback" mechanism that automatically reimposes all UN Security Council sanctions lifted under the 2015 Iran deal, according to Axios.
