2023-06-12 00:55:00
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, today urged the government to continue cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN agency that oversees that the country’s nuclear program has a civilian target, and ruled out that Tehran wants to “produce nuclear weapons”.
“Based on Islamic principles, we don’t want to produce nuclear weapons, and if we did, they couldn’t stop us,” Khamenei admitted, calling the Western accusations “lies”, according to the agency ANSA
“There is no problem in reaching an agreement if Iran’s atomic infrastructure does not undergo changes”he stressed, referring to the conversations with the IAEA and the other powers.
However, “We don’t trust the other parties to the nuclear talks and the IAEA to keep their promises”he added.
The supreme leader’s statement came after Iran relaunched contacts with the IAEA in recent months, reversing the policy maintained last year by the Tehran authorities, which limited their communications with the agency and unplugged security cameras from its facilities. nuclear.
The UN agency reported “progress” in cooperation with Iran at the end of May, but warned that Tehran had considerably increased its inventories of enriched uranium in recent months.
For his part, the head of the Organization for Atomic Energy of Iran, Mohammad. Eslami, argued that “some countries accuse Iran of pursuing military objectives by enriching uranium to higher levels.”
“Our main goal of the 60% enrichment level is to put pressure on Western powers to lift sanctions,” Eslam explained.i, adding that the Islamic Republic’s move is in line with Iranian law on “strategic action to remove sanctions,” ratified in late 2020.
Iran has used 60% enriched uranium at the Natanz nuclear plant in Isfahan and the Fordow underground site in Qom, for various purposes, including the production of raw materials for the production of radiopharmaceuticals, Eslami stressed in an interview with the Ettelaat newspaper. .
The Iranian leader’s statements coincide with press reports about a resumption of indirect contacts between Iran and the United States to reactivate the negotiations on the Tehran nuclear agreement.
The pact reached in 2015 between Iran and the great powers allowed the lifting of sanctions in exchange for Tehran committing not to develop nuclear weapons.
The agreement was left in limbo after the United States unilaterally withdrew in 2018, during the Donald Trump administration.
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