Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Thursday that he has no plans for meeting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on the sidelines of the 51st session of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations underway in Singapore.

Speaking exclusively with Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) correspondent in Singapore after signing the documents on Iran's joining the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), Zarif said: 'We haven't had few meetings with the United States; Maybe we had the highest number of meetings with the Americans in two years, but the incumbent administration has shown it does not honor its commitments.'

'Meeting for the sake of meeting means nothing. The Americans have to show that the meetings will lead to agreements that will be respected,' Zarif said.

Today even the US allies cannot trust the commitments made by Washington, the Iranian foreign minister said.

Referring to US withdrawal from international conventions, including North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Paris Conventions, Zarif said that the US should be ready to engage in talks based on dialogue on the one hand and know that pressure and dialogue do not go together on the other hand.

The thing noteworthy in the meetings with Singaporean prime minister and all the foreign ministers from different countries was that they were all determined to keep Iran nuclear deal and make use of innovative methods to continue with their economic relations with Iran, Zarif said.

'All the countries with whose officials I met and conferred, stressed the need to protect their independence against the US policies regarding Iran nuclear deal and preserving the deal as a diplomatic achievement,' the Iranian foreign minister added.
 

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