Esmaeil Baghaei, the spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, has accused Israel and the United States of spending more than 20 years “scaring” the world with claims about Iran’s nuclear programme, Al Jazeera reports.

In comments carried by the IRNA news agency, Baghaei says while Tehran is preparing “for negotiations, the country must be fully prepared for any scenario”.

He rejects concerns about Iran’s nuclear activities, saying they lack a real basis.

Despite the 12-day war in June last year, the “decision was made to enter into the negotiation process, and in the last round, an agreement was reached on some main parameters for an initial understanding, from their perspective to address concerns and from our perspective to guarantee Iran’s nuclear rights”, Baghaei says.