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Pezeshkian to Pashinyan: Iran confident in own peaceful nuclear program, never accepts coercion
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that Iran is confident in the peaceful nature of its nuclear activities, stressing that exerting pressure on Iran and depriving it of its legal rights “is absolutely unacceptable.”
In a phone call with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the Iranian president said Tehran is committed to international laws and, given its confidence in peaceful nature of its nuclear activities, has never had and does not have any concerns regarding monitoring and inspections by the UN atomic agency.
“However, we firmly stress that the use of coercion and pressure, as well as depriving our people of their legitimate rights, is in no way acceptable,” Pezeshkian said.
Since April, Iran and the United States held five rounds of nuclear negotiations through Omani mediators before Israel launched its 12-day aggression against Iran on June 13. US President Donald Trump's decision to join Israel in striking Iranian nuclear facilities effectively ended the talks which were set to resume on June 15. The aggression against Iran claimed the lives of more than 1,000 Iranians, most of them civilians.
Despite the aggression, both Tehran and Washington have signaled willingness to return to the table, though Tehran has said it will not give up its right to enrich uranium – a demand by the US for signing an agreement with Iran.
At the same time, the European parties to the 2015 nuclear deal – Britain, Germany and France – are threatening Iran with activating a snapback mechanism if no deal is reached with the US on Iran’s nuclear program.
The so-called snapback mechanism allows for the return of anti-Iran sanctions suspended under the nuclear deal, from which the US withdrew in 2018 and its European parties failed to fulfill their commitments under the deal.
The deal expires in October and gives the parties to it a fast-looming deadline to invoke the clause.
US ‘genuine will’
Meanwhile, the Iranian foreign minister said Tehran should see the United States’ “genuine will" for resumption of nuclear talks, which ran into a snag following the US-Israeli aggression against Iran last month.
“If we are still not convinced, it is because we should see the other side’s genuine will — a will to reach a win-win solution,” Abbas Araghchi said in an interview with China’s CGTN on the sidelines of a recent meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Tianjin.
“Our nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes, and we are certain about this. We have no problem with sharing this with others; however, this can only be achieved through negotiation,” the Iranian foreign minister said.
Araghchi said Iran proved the peaceful nature of its nuclear program by signing an agreement with world powers in 2015, which was praised by the world praised as a “major diplomatic achievement.”
But suddenly, Washington decided to pull out from the deal in a “regrettable decision,” Araghchi said, adding that “everything we are witnessing today stems from that withdrawal.”
Referring to a cease-fire proposed by the US to end conflict between Iran and Israel, Araghchi said that Iran’s Armed Forces forced the aggressors to end their aggression and demand for a cease-fire. However, he said that the cease-fire “remains fragile” due to the regime’s “bad record” of breaking the cease-fire rules.
Iran’s top diplomat underlined that the Islamic Republic is prepared to respond to any new aggression.
“We don’t want this war to continue,” he said. “But we are prepared for that.”
Iran’s Armed Forces responded to the aggression by Israel and the US by targeting the regime’s military facilities in the occupied territories and the US largest military site in West Asia in Qatar.
Following Iran’s retaliation, the US proposed a cease-fire to end the conflict.