Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif denied the report that in his nuclear meetings with US Secretary of State John Kerry the issue of Iran's domestic politics has been raised.
Zarif described the report by western media about the details of his talks with Kerry as "spreading lies" and said, "Internal issues have never been raised in any of the meetings and the published report is utterly false."
In a report on Saturday, Reuters claimed that three senior Iranian officials told it that Zarif had warned the United States that failure to agree a nuclear deal would likely herald the political demise of pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani.
The unmanned officials allegedly said the foreign minister pressed the concern with the US secretary of state at several meetings in recent weeks, adding that Iran had also raised the issue with other western powers.
Western officials also told Reuters that they shared the view that Rouhani's political clout would be heavily damaged by the failure of talks.
Meanwhile, a senior US official denied that any such warnings had been received from the Iranians. "We'll leave assessment of Iranian politics to the Iranians but this rumor is untrue," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Other western officials claimed that the Iranian delegation had raised the same concern in talks recently.
