U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Iran wants to make a deal, but Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Iran has no negotiation plans at the moment and is focused on defense.
Trump told media on Wednesday that he received a call indicating Iran's interest in meeting and reaching an agreement with the United States.
In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Trump threatened that the United States would expand its strikes on Iran to target power plants and bridges next week unless Tehran agrees to negotiate.
Trump also said he does not rule out the possibility of sending ground troops to Iran.
On the Iranian side, Baghaei said on Wednesday that Iran has no plans for negotiations and remains focused on defense, according to Iran's semi-official Tasnim News Agency.
Baghaei also said that the Iran-U.S. memorandum of understanding (MoU) is a set of mutual commitments, and that if the other side violates it, Iran will stop fulfilling its own obligations.
Also on Wednesday, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said the MoU only holds meaning if all its clauses are valid and implemented.
If Iran cannot benefit from the MoU, there is no reason to adhere to it, he said.
Trump says Iran wants deal, Iran says no talks planned
Trump says Iran wants deal, Iran says no talks planned
China's real estate market witnessed positive changes in the first half of the year as supportive property policies continued to take effect, an official with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Wednesday.
With home prices in major cities stabilizing, unsold housing inventory declined and second-hand home transactions remained active, Mao Shengyong, deputy director of the NBS, said at a press conference in Beijing, adding that policy adjustments and optimization measures introduced across the country have gradually delivered results, contributing to an improving property market.
Data showed that since March, the month-on-month sales prices of both newly built commercial homes and second-hand homes in first-tier cities have risen for four consecutive months, Mao said.
The inventory of unsold commercial housing also continued to decline. By the end of June, the floor space of unsold commercial housing nationwide had fallen 0.9 percent year on year, with the pace of decline widening by 0.5 percentage points from the previous month, he said.
The inventory has registered year-on-year declines for four straight months.
And the second-hand housing market remained active. In the first half of the year, the floor space of online-registered second-hand home transactions increased 10.2 percent year on year, 2.5 percentage points faster than the growth recorded in the January-May period.
"As China's real estate market continues to readjust, profound changes are taking place in both the structure and overall scale of property transactions. The traditional market pattern, which was driven mainly by sales of newly built homes, is rapidly shifting toward one featuring both new and second-hand home transactions. Second-hand home sales have become an important part of the housing market. According to online registration data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the transaction area of second-hand homes is now roughly equivalent to that of newly built homes. When combining online-registered transactions of both new and second-hand homes, total transaction volume in the past three months has recorded positive growth continuously. Overall, the supply-demand relationship in the real estate market is gradually improving, and market expectations have continued to recover," said Mao.
Property market sees positive changes in H1
