MOMITORING (SW) – Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says the United States’ offer to hold talks on its nuclear programme is an attempt to deceive global public opinion, as a letter arrived from US President Donald Trump urging negotiations.
Trump said last week that he had sent a letter to the Iranian leadership seeking negotiations over a new deal with Tehran to restrain its rapidly advancing nuclear programme.
“We negotiated for years, reached a complete and signed agreement, and then this individual tore it up,” Khamenei said. “How can one negotiate under such circumstances? … When we know they won’t, what is the point of negotiating?”
He referred to the 2015 nuclear accord that Tehran signed with world powers to curtail its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. In 2018, during his first term in office, Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the deal and imposed new economic restrictions on Iran. Tehran responded a year later by violating the deal’s nuclear curbs.
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has signalled his desire to negotiate while also reinstating his policy on “maximum pressure” on Iran.
Khamenei said negotiating with the Trump administration, which he said has excessive demands, “will tighten the knot of sanctions and increase pressure on Iran”.
Iran has long denied seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, reported Al Jazeera.
“If we wanted to build nuclear weapons, the US would not be able to stop it. We ourselves do not want it,” Khamenei said.
However, Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, has jumped, the International Atomic Energy Agency said late last month, the news agency added.
Britain warned on Wednesday that it would trigger a return of U.N. sanctions on Iran, if needed, to prevent it from getting a nuclear weapon as the Security Council met to discuss Tehran’s expansion of its stock of uranium close to weapons grade.
Western states say there is no need to enrich uranium to such a high level under any civilian program and that no other country has done so without producing nuclear bombs. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful, a Reuters report said.
“We are clear that we will take any diplomatic measures to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon, that includes the use of snapback (of sanctions), if needed,” Britain’s deputy U.N. Ambassador James Kariuki told reporters ahead of the meeting.
The closed-door meeting was called by six of the council’s 15 members – the U.S., France, Greece, Panama, South Korea and Britain.
Iran’s U.N. mission accused the United States of seeking to weaponize the U.N. Security Council “to escalate economic warfare against Iran,” adding in a post on X: “This dangerous abuse must be rejected to protect the council’s credibility.”
The U.S. mission to the U.N. said in a statement after the council meeting that Iran was “the only country in the world without nuclear weapons producing highly enriched uranium, for which it has no credible peaceful purpose.”
It accused Iran of defying the Security Council and violating IAEA obligations, calling on the council to “be clear and united in addressing and condemning this brazen behavior.”
