Former Iranian MP says US using enrichment demand to derail Iran talks

Washington’s calls for Tehran to halt uranium enrichment are a pretext to derail nuclear negotiations, not a genuine concern about weapons development, a former Iranian lawmaker said Saturday.

“The Americans know we are not seeking nuclear weapons,” Mohammad Hassan Asafari, a former member of parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, told ISNA news agency. “They just want to undermine the Islamic system in Iran and pressure us into giving up our rights.”

“The Islamic Republic has paid a high price—human, political, and economic—to develop its nuclear industry,” he added. “Stopping enrichment would mean discarding that investment.”