US won't dare take action against Iran: top IRGC commander

Dismissing the probability of negotiations, a senior official of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on Friday said that the United States "will not dare military action" against Iran.

"Negotiations with Americans will not take place, and Americans will not dare to take military action against us," Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, the Lieutenant Commander of the IRGC for Political Affairs, told Tasnim News Agency.

This comes as diplomatic tensions between the US and Iran are at an all-time high, especially after US exited the Iran nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions on the nation in 2018.

In fact, the US recently designated the IRGC as a "foreign terrorist organisation," inviting strong countermeasures from Iran who designated the US as a "state sponsor of terrorism," labelling the US Central Command (CENTCOM) as a "terror group" in response.

Furthermore, sending a strong message to Iran, the US' National Security Adviser, John Bolton on Sunday announced the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln and a bomber task force to the US Central Command region.

Confirming this, the US military posted pictures of its B-52 Stratofortress nuclear-capable strategic bombers landing at the Al Udeid US Air Base in Qatar during the wee hours on Friday.

"Trump had thought that with the new sanctions and pressures imposed on the Islamic Republic by the US after its withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran would face a kind of internal turmoil and would eventually negotiate with the US, but in practice it did not happen," the Iranian military official said.

"The Americans are in a state of turmoil and anger, and because of their desperation, they have done whatever they can to break the Iranian nation's 40-year-old resistance," he added.

While on the one hand, US President Donald Trump has alleged that Iran is "threatening" them. On the other, he added that the United States was not "looking to hurt" Iran.

"What I'd like to see with Iran, I'd like to see them call me...I look forward to the day where we can actually help Iran. We're not looking to hurt Iran," the US leader said on Thursday.

Despite USA's exit from the Iran nuclear deal, European powers have indicated their intent in keeping the deal intact, especially after Iran issued a two-month ultimatum to the remaining nations while announcing a partial exit from the pact.

"We strongly urge Iran to continue to implement its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in full as it has done until now and to refrain from any escalatory steps," said a joint statement issued by the European Union (EU) and the foreign ministers of France, Germany, and Britain.

In response, Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif asked the EU to uphold its obligations under the JCPOA.

"EU statement today is why JCPOA is where it is: the US has bullied Europe - and rest of world - for a year and EU can only express "regret". Instead of demanding that Iran unilaterally abide by a multilateral accord, the EU should uphold obligations - including the normalisation of economic ties," he tweeted.