“TALKS are useless” with a United States that “does not accept logic,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani declared today in a speech marking the launch of a surface-to-air missile.

“Now that our enemies do not accept logic we cannot respond with logic. When the enemy launches a missile against us, we cannot say ‘Mr Rocket, please do not hit our country and our innocent people’,” he said.

Tension between Tehran and Washington has risen since President Donald Trump tore up the 2015 agreement on nuclear development that Iran had negotiated with the US, the EU, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China.