President Ebrahim Raisi said on Saturday that Iran will continue to advance its “peaceful” nuclear activities as ongoing talks in Vienna to revive the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), have stalled. Iran also announced on the same day that it has sanctioned senior American officials involved in “terrorist” acts.
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi says his country will not give up its right to continue its nuclear program for peaceful purposes pic.twitter.com/pG2v0ysMzX
— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) April 10, 2022
Speaking at a ceremony on Iran’s nuclear technology day, Raisi emphasised that Iran’s nuclear programme is peaceful, giving it inherent rights as an independent country to pursue nuclear activities. To this end, he underscored that the West’s “non-acceptance” of Iran’s nuclear programme will not result in Iran halting its progress in the field.
“On the National Day of the Nuclear Industry, we announce that peaceful nuclear activities, relying on creativity and innovative measures, will continue to move towards increasing progress,” the Iranian president declared.
Raisi stressed that the Islamic Republic “will not take a single step back” from its rights in the Vienna talks, which have been going on for over a year with no deal in sight. Currently, negotiators have halted talks in order to assess the progress made so far and find solutions to sort disagreements.
Iran has blamed the United States (US) for the pause in talks and said that Washington needs to make a final call on reviving the deal and warned that it will “not wait forever.” Reiterating Tehran’s stance, Raisi said, “The Islamic Republic of Iran has not left the talks and will not stop them.”
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Raisi said that despite “sanctions, threats, and oppressions that were inflicted on Iran” and the assassinations of Iranian scientists and sabotage of nuclear facilities, Iran has continued to advance its peaceful nuclear goals. “The enemies know very well that nuclear weapons have no place in the defence doctrine of the Islamic Republic,” the President said, referring to a 2003 fatwa issued by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei forbidding the production of weapons of mass destruction.
Moreover, on the same day, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said that it had imposed sanctions on 24 US officials, including former army chief George Casey and ex-President Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Iran on Saturday imposed sanctions on 24 more Americans in a largely symbolic move, as months of talks to revive a 2015 nuclear deal have stalled.https://t.co/HFuDgFppjq
— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) April 9, 2022
The Ministry said that the designations were in conformity with the ‘Countering Violations of Human Rights and Adventurist and Terrorist Actions of the US’ Act. It accused the sanctioned individuals of organising “unilateral coercive measures” against Iranians, “financing and supporting terrorist groups and terrorist acts” against Iran, and “supporting repressive acts of the Zionist regime of Israel in the region, in particular, against the Palestinian people.”
The Ministry also blamed the US for deliberately inflicting “hard conditions of life on the Iranian people including by deprivation of access to medicine and medical equipment and services.” “Such unlawful measures constitute flagrant violations of the fundamental principles of international law and fundamental human rights and are a clear example of crime against humanity,” the statement added.
Iran and the P5+1—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and Germany—signed the JCPOA in 2015. The deal, which extended sanctions relief to Iran to significantly reduce its nuclear programme, seeks to prolong its “breakout capacity,” the time required to produce highly enriched uranium for one nuclear weapon.
However, the previous US administration, led by President Donald Trump, decided to withdraw from the JCPOA in 2018 and re-imposed punitive measures on Iran. After coming to power in 2021, President Joe Biden expressed a willingness to re-join the JCPOA and remove the crippling sanctions on Iran. Consequently, world powers and Iran have held intense negotiations in Vienna, Austria to restore the deal since last April.