A senior Iranian cleric said on Friday that dismantling the country's uranium enrichment infrastructure would be a national humiliation and urged the United States to accept Iran’s right to low-level enrichment.
“No rational nation would accept the humiliation of dismantling its centrifuges,” said Hassan Ameli, the Supreme Leader’s representative in Ardabil province, during Friday prayers, according to Iranian state media.
He said low-level enrichment to meet medical and industrial needs posed no threat and was “far removed from any link to nuclear weapons.” If the United States accepted enrichment at that level, Ameli added, the nuclear dispute could be fully resolved.
Ameli also said Iran was willing to export enriched uranium to a country chosen by the other side as a gesture of compromise, and warned that rejecting such concessions suggests a broader effort to deny Iran scientific and technological independence.
