abduction<\/a> of leftist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a US Special Forces intervention, said that a meeting was being set up with Tehran to negotiate on its nuclear programme, \u201cbut we may have to act because of what is happening before the meeting\u201d.<\/p>\n\u201cIf Washington wants to test the military option it has tested before, we are ready for it,\u201d said Araghchi, adding that he hoped the US would choose \u201cthe wise option\u201d of dialogue, while warning of \u201cthose trying to drag Washington into war in order to serve Israel\u2019s interests\u201d.<\/p>\n
In the interview, Araghchi alluded to the growing death toll, repeating earlier assertions that \u201cterrorist elements\u201d had \u201cinfiltrated the crowds of protesters and targeted security forces and demonstrators\u201d. Iran has blamed the US and Israel for provoking unrest in the country over the past two weeks.<\/p>\n
More than\u00a0100 security personnel have been killed in recent days, state media has reported, while opposition activists say the death toll is higher and includes hundreds of protesters. Al Jazeera has been unable to independently verify the figures.<\/p>\n
The flow of information from Iran has been hampered by an internet blackout since Thursday. The foreign minister had said on Monday that the service would be resumed in coordination with security services. Monitor NetBlocks said at 16:29 GMT on Monday that Iran had been offline for 96 hours.<\/p>\n
Araghchi told Al Jazeera Arabic that his communications with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff had \u201ccontinued before and after the protests and are still ongoing\u201d. He said that ideas that had been discussed with Washington were being studied in Tehran.<\/p>\n
However, he added, \u201cWashington\u2019s proposed ideas and threats against our country are incompatible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are ready to sit at the nuclear negotiating table, provided that it is without threats or dictates,\u201d said Araghchi, questioning whether Washington was \u201cready for fair and just negotiations\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it is ready, we will seriously consider the matter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on Sunday that the US military and Israel would be \u201clegitimate targets\u201d if Washington intervened in the current unrest, warning Washington of a \u201cmiscalculation\u201d.<\/p>\n
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt accused Iran of sending \u201cquite different\u201d messages to the US in private, compared to its public statements, in an interview with the Fox News programme America Reports on Monday.<\/p>\n
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the White House was weighing Iran\u2019s offer to engage in further military talks, even as Trump mulled strikes on the country.<\/p>\n
The US last year bombed Iranian nuclear sites when it joined Israel\u2019s 12-day war with Iran.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Foreign minister says he hopes Washington will choose \u2018wise option\u2019 of dialogue after Donald Trump threatens US intervention. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has warned the United States that his country is ready for war if Washington wants to \u201ctest\u201d it, after US President Donald Trump threatened to take military action in response to Iran\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}