Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei discarded the attitude of some Western countries regarding Iran’s nuclear program and said this Sunday that fears of Iran building a nuclear bomb are nothing but false excuses.
Speaking for a group of Iranian top nuclear scientists on this Sunday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei elaborated on the country’s nuclear program and asserted that Iran is not looking for manufacturing nuclear bombs at all. However, the Supreme Leader noted than even if Iran wanted to go nuclear, no western country could ever stop it.
“Talks about Tehran’s nuclear weapons is a lie and they (the West) know it. We do not want nuclear arms based on our religious believes because Islamic values prevent us from pursuing a weapon of mass destruction. Otherwise, they would not have been able to stop it, just as they haven’t been able to stop our nuclear advances and won’t be able to,” Khamenei said, according to Iran’s state media.
Earlier on Sunday, Ayatollah Khamenei toured an exhibition on Iran’s nuclear achievements in Tehran. Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Mohammad Eslami and a number of directors and personnel of the organization accompanied the Supreme Leader on the visit. During the visit, Eslami provided Ayatollah Khamenei with a brief report about the latest achievements of the AEOI in the field of nuclear science.
Khamenei also explained that all the rhetoric about Iran’s nuclear program and that the Islamic Republic is trying to build nuclear bomb is but a lie fabricated by the West, especially the United States. “The excuse of a nuclear weapon is a lie, this is not the issue, something else is at play. They know that nuclear advancement will be a key for progress in other issues of the country,” Iran’s Leader said.
The West is ‘not reliable’, Iran’s Leader emphasized
He also criticized the West, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and accused them of not being reliable when it comes to fulfilling their promises, saying that “parties opposing Iran’s nuclear activities are untruthful when it comes to abiding by their commitments”.
But Iran’s Leader did not discard cooperation with the IAEA as Iran is a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty as well as the IAEA itself. “You might make agreements on some issues, there is no problem with that, but make sure the infrastructures of the nuclear industry remain untouched, but cooperation with the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog must continue within the framework of safeguards agreements and in compliance with a law” he said.
Iran currently enriches uranium to 60 percent, a level of enrichment that is commonly used for medical purposes. However, western countries, especially the US, as well as Israel, believe that it is a short technical step from the over 90 percent purity required for a bomb and Iran does intend to go nuclear in the near future.
They claim that Iran has amassed enough fissile material for more than one bomb. At the same time, however, Western intelligence sources and monitors have said several times that there have been no signs that Tehran is currently working on producing a bomb.
Iran and the IAEA reached an agreement to strengthen their cooperation in early March, in order to resolve cases that Tehran has maintained need to be finalized before the country’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which the United States unilaterally abandoned in 2018, can be restored. The agency also said earlier this month it has no further questions at the moment on two of four cases around nuclear sites after Iran provided plausible answers.
