Iran rules out US talks after joint strikes, vows sole focus on defence

Iran's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva has ruled out for now any negotiations with the United States, three days after the US and Israel launched joint strikes on his country.

Ali Bahreini, ambassador of the Iranian mission to the UN in Geneva, told reporters on Tuesday that Iran had not contacted the US either directly or indirectly about holding talks to de-escalate the conflict or about resuming negotiations over Tehran's nuclear programme.

Asked about the prospects for any talks, Bahreini said: "For the time being we are very doubtful about the usefulness of negotiation... The only language for talking with the United States is the language of defence."

"I don't think it is a time for having any kind of negotiation from our side," he added.

Iranian and US negotiators held talks in Geneva last Thursday, which Oman, their mediator, said had produced progress, but the US and Israel began their airstrikes on Iran two days later, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other senior Iranian officials and triggering a regional crisis.

Open-ended answers

Iran has retaliated by firing missiles and drones at neighbouring Gulf Arab states and at Israel and by strangling shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world's oil and huge volumes of gas skirt its coastline.

Explosions rocked Tehran again on Tuesday, and financial markets around the world tumbled amid fears of a prolonged disruption to global energy supplies. US President Donald Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have given open-ended answers when asked how long the war might last.

Trump has suggested the war could take four or five weeks, while Netanyahu has said it is "not going to take years".

A source familiar with Israel's war plan said on Tuesday that the Israeli campaign had been planned to last two weeks and was moving faster than expected.