The Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Iran has been open to talks with Europe but dismissed reports that a recent bilateral meeting was focused on Iran's regional role that US President Donald Trump wants to be curbed.
"Despite what has been recently claimed by western media based on their own subjective and desired interpretation, Iran and Europe can hold discussions and consultations—not necessarily negotiations in the political and legal sense of the word—on various bilateral and international issues in line with the Islamic Republic's principled, wise policy," Bahram Qasemi said.
"Certainly, [the Iran-Europe meeting] is not something new and strange. But I do not confirm the claims of an agreement to engage in negotiations over specific matters based on a pre-determined mechanism and framework," he was quoted by ISNA as saying on Sunday.
Qasemi was commenting on a Reuters report on Friday that European powers and Iran have started talks over Tehran's role in the Middle East and will meet again this month in Italy as part of efforts to prove to Trump that they are meeting his concerns over the 2015 nuclear deal.
With Trump warning of a last chance for "the worst deal ever negotiated", Britain, France and Germany have been working with US officials to draw up a strategy to improve the Iran nuclear deal in return for Trump keeping the pact alive by renewing US sanctions relief on May 12.
***Parallel Effort
Parallel to those efforts, the three European powers, joined by Italy and the European Union, have allegedly initiated discussions with Iran over its regional activities, which Trump claims are destabilizing.
Tehran denies this and accuses the United States and its main regional allies, namely Israel and Saudi Arabia, of fomenting tensions in the Middle East.
Senior officials from Iran and the four European states held a first meeting on the sidelines of last month's Munich Security Conference, focusing on the Yemen conflict and are due to meet again in Italy this month, Reuters cited unnamed officials from the two sides as saying.
Qasemi confirmed but played down the meeting on Yemen. "On the MSC margins, talks were held between the Islamic Republic's delegation headed by Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs [Abbas Araqchi] and his counterparts from the European countries revolving on Yemen because of the urgent, catastrophic situation there."
Washington has accused Tehran of breaching UN resolutions by supplying Yemen's Houthi leaders with weapons, a charge Iran has vehemently denied.
