Iran has no desire for nuclear weapons, despite having ability - Vice President
Iran has the ability to make nuclear weapons, but it does not want to own nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction, said Vice President and Chief of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Mohammad Eslami, Azernews reports.
Eslami stated that Iran’s defense and security doctrine has never and will never include having weapons of mass destruction.
The vice president also said that Iran has a high-level security assurance and deterrent defense system. This is a level of defense system that very few countries possess.
Some media outlets on December 26, 2023 citing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), reported that Iran had increased its 60 percent uranium enrichment rate at the Natanz and Fordo sites since late November 2023. They claimed that Iran was producing about 9 kg of highly enriched uranium every month, which could be used to make 3 atomic bombs.
Iran’s nuclear program was the subject of the JCPOA, a deal signed by Iran and the P5+1 group (US, Russia, China, UK, France, and Germany) on January 16, 2016. However, on May 8, 2018, the US withdrew from the JCPOA and imposed new sanctions on Iran as of November 2018.
Iran claims that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes, but the IAEA has reported that Iran has increased its highly enriched uranium by 27 percent in the last three months and now has 4,745 kilograms of enriched uranium. This is 15 times more than the amount allowed for Iran in the JCPOA.
Iran has been trying to resume talks with the other parties on its nuclear issue and revive the JCPOA. In discussions on the nuclear program, Iran is mainly trying to achieve the abolition of sanctions imposed by the US and Western countries, the removal of its funds frozen abroad, and the abolition of the restriction on the export of crude oil. In return, the US and Western countries want Iran not to acquire an atomic bomb, to keep its nuclear program under control, and to reduce the level of uranium enrichment.
---
Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz