Iran to Continue Uranium Enrichment but Open to Renewed Nuclear Talks

Reuters

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says that Iran will continue its uranium enrichment programme despite severe damage caused by recent U.S. and Israeli air strikes, describing the programme as a matter of “national pride.” However, he said Tehran remains open to renewed negotiations.

“It is now stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe, but obviously, we cannot give up our enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists, and now, more than that, it is a question of national pride,” Araghchi told the U.S. broadcaster Fox News in an interview aired on Monday.

Araghchi said at the beginning of the interview that Iran is “open to talks” with the United States, but that they would not be direct talks “for the time being”.

“If they (the U.S.) are coming for a win-win solution, I am ready to engage with them,” he said.

“We are ready to do any confidence-building measure needed to prove that Iran’s nuclear programme is peaceful and would remain peaceful forever, and Iran would never go for nuclear weapons, and in return, we expect them to lift their sanctions,” the foreign minister added.

“So, my message to the United States is that let’s go for a negotiated solution for Iran’s nuclear programme.”

Tehran and Washington had been holding talks on the nuclear programme earlier this year, seven years after U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Tehran signed with several world powers in 2015. Under the pact, Iran opened the country’s nuclear sites to comprehensive international inspection in return for the lifting of sanctions. However, the negotiations were halted after U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Iran said earlier on Monday that it would hold renewed talks this week with European nations over the country's nuclear programme, with discussions to be hosted by Turkey.

The talks, to be held in Istanbul on Friday, will be the first since a ceasefire was reached after a 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June, which also saw the United States strike Iran's nuclear facilities.

The discussions will bring Iranian officials together with officials from Britain, France and Germany — known as the E3 nations — and will include the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas.

“The topic of the talks is clear, lifting sanctions and issues related to the peaceful nuclear program of Iran," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said in his weekly briefing. He said the meeting will be held at the deputy ministerial level.

Under a 2015 deal designed to cap Iran’s nuclear activities, Iran agreed to tough restrictions on its international programme in exchange for an easing of sanctions. The deal began to unravel in 2018, when the United States pulled out of it and began to reimpose certain sanctions. European countries have recently threatened to trigger the 2015 deal’s “snapback” mechanism, which would allow sanctions to be reimposed in the case of noncompliance by Tehran.

German Foreign Ministry spokesperson Martin Giese, asked who Germany will send to the talks and what its expectations are, said that “the talks are taking place at expert level.”

“Iran must never come into possession of a nuclear weapon,” so Germany, France and Britain are “continuing to work … at high pressure on a sustainable and verifiable diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear program,” he said. “This course of action is also coordinated with the U.S.”

“It’s very clear that, should no solution be reached by the end of August … snapback remains an option for the E3,” Giese told reporters in Berlin.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on Sunday the three European nations lack “any legal, political, and moral standing” to invoke such mechanisms, and accused Britain, France and Germany of failing to uphold their commitments in the deal.

“Attempting to trigger ‘snapback’ under these circumstances, in defiance of established facts and prior communications, constitutes an abuse of process that the international community must reject,” Araghchi said.

He also criticised the three European nations for “providing political and material support to the recent unprovoked and illegal military aggression of the Israeli regime and the US.”



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