Iran’s foreign ministry on Saturday rejected any new negotiations or changes to the participants in its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Reuters reported.
The comment came after French President Emmanuel Macron said any new talks should include Saudi Arabia.
“The nuclear accord is a multilateral international agreement ratified by UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which is non-negotiable and parties to it are clear and unchangeable,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh was quoted as saying.
In his comments on Friday, cited by Al Arabiya television, Macron stressed the need to avoid what he called the mistake of excluding other countries in the region when the 2015 deal was negotiated.
Khatibzadeh called on Macron to “show self-restraint” and added, “If French officials are worried about their huge arms sales to Persian Gulf Arab states, they better reconsider their policies. French arms, along with other Western weapons, not only cause the massacre of thousands of Yemenis, but are also the main cause of regional instability.”
Former US President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 agreement nearly three years ago and reimposed sanctions on Iran. The Islamic Republic, in turn, has gradually scaled back its compliance with the 2015 deal.
Current President Joe Biden has expressed a desire to return to the 2015 agreement and recently told The New York Times that he would return to the 2015 agreement if Iran returned to compliance with it.
Iran has made clear that it will not renegotiate the original agreement. Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif just last week urged Biden to "choose a better path" by returning to the 2015 deal and warned that the opportunity would be lost if Washington insists on further Iranian concessions up front.
During the negotiations between Iran and world powers on the 2015 nuclear deal, Saudi Arabia and other major Sunni states expressed concern over a deal which would allow Iran to produce nuclear weapons – a position which placed them very close to Israel’s position on the matter.
Ultimately, however, Saudi Arabia's government announced that it welcomed the deal.