DUBAI: Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated on Wednesday (Jun 4) Tehran won’t abandon its uranium enrichment, rejecting a key US demand aimed toward resolving a decades-long nuclear dispute, that he stated was in opposition to the Islamic Republic’s pursuits.
The US proposal for a new nuclear deal was introduced to Iran on Saturday by Oman, which has mediated talks between Iranian International Minister Abbas Araqchi and President Donald Trump’s Center East envoy, Steve Witkoff.
After 5 spherical of talks, a number of hard-to-bridge points stay, together with Iran’s insistence on sustaining uranium enrichment on its soil and Tehran’s refusal to ship overseas its total present stockpile of extremely enriched uranium – potential uncooked materials for nuclear bombs.
“Uranium enrichment is the important thing to our nuclear programme and the enemies have centered on the enrichment,” Khamenei stated in a televised speech. The US proposal “contradicts our nation’s perception in self-reliance and the precept of ‘We Can’,” he stated.
“The impolite and boastful leaders of America repeatedly demand that we must always not have a nuclear programme. Who’re you to resolve whether or not Iran ought to have an enrichment?,” he added.
Tehran says it desires to grasp nuclear expertise for peaceable functions and has lengthy denied accusations by Western powers that it’s in search of to develop nuclear weapons.
On Monday, Reuters reported Tehran was poised to reject the US proposal on the grounds that it was a “non-starter” that failed to melt Washington’s stance on uranium enrichment or to deal with Tehran’s pursuits.
Trump has revived his “most strain” marketing campaign in opposition to Tehran since his return to the White Home in January, which included tightening sanctions and threatening to bomb Iran if the negotiations yield no deal.
Throughout his first time period in 2018, Trump ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six powers and reimposed sanctions which have crippled Iran’s economic system. Iran responded by escalating enrichment far past the pact’s limits.
Iran’s arch-foe Israel, which sees Iran’s nuclear programme as an existential menace, has repeatedly threatened to bomb the Islamic Republic’s nuclear services to forestall Tehran from buying nuclear weapons.
