Iran leader opposes direct talks with US: Bahonar

                                                                                                                                                    

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei opposes holding direct negotiations with the United States, a senior lawmaker said in comments published on Monday.

"Presently, the Supreme National Security Council and the Supreme Leader emphasise that our strategic policies are based on the absence of negotiations with the United States," sources quoted Vice Speaker Mohammad Reza Bahonar as saying.

"That is why we will not have any direct negotiations with the United States," Bahonar said at a meeting of an Islamic engineers association.

Bahonar is a conservative MP who often criticises the government of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"The policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is based on the absence of official negotiations with the United States ... the conditions for such negotiations must emerge, which have not as yet emerged," Bahonar added.