Iran denies seeking talks with US after Trump comments

Iran has not requested talks with the United States to bring an end to the widening war, Iran’s ambassador to Egypt told AP Thursday, denying comments by US President Donald Trump that the country “wants to talk.”

Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, said a lack of trust makes any such engagement impossible after talks for a possible nuclear deal twice failed and ended with the war.

“There will be no trust in Trump,” he said. Ferdousi Pour described the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the attacks in Iran as ” heinous crimes” and reiterated that any military bases or facilities belonging to the United States or Israeli “are considered targets of Iranian attack.”

“We have declared repeatedly that if there are bases on the borders of the Islamic Republic of Iran belonging to the United States, and they will benefit from these bases, they will be targeted,” he said, from the Iranian Embassy in Egypt’s capital, Cairo, adding that the war extends beyond military engagement.

“It’s a comprehensive war. It’s cyber warfare. It’s an economic war. It’s a political and security war. … This is a war in all fields,” he said.

The ambassador also said that the election of a new Islamic Supreme Leader shouldn’t “take long.”

US President Donald Trump said Thursday he should be involved in choosing Iran’s next supreme leader as the US and Israel hammered the country for a sixth day. Iran kept up retaliatory attacks on Israel, American bases and countries around the region.

Trump ruled out Mojtaba Khamenei, a front-runner to replace his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the opening strikes of the war.

Trump’s comments to the American news website Axios were likely to renew questions about whether the US and Israel seek the overthrow of the Islamic Republic or just a change in its policies, as the conflict has appeared increasingly open-ended.