Iran is ready to accept certain restrictions on its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions, but ending uranium enrichment is not negotiable, the country’s deputy foreign minister said.
“We can agree to have limits on our nuclear program and in return the sanctions must be lifted,” Majid Takht-e Ravanchi told Kyodo News in an interview on Saturday.
“Iran can be flexible on the capacities and limits of enrichment, but cannot agree to stop enrichment under any circumstance because it's essential, and we need to rely on ourselves, not on empty promises,” he added.
Takht-e Ravanchi said one obstacle to renewed talks with Washington was the need for clarity over past US actions.
“The United States should explain to us about the reasons it resorted to the use of force against us. If we want to have a genuine dialogue, everybody has to be transparent. The United States in fact tricked us. They pretended that they wanted to talk, but they decided to go for the military option.”
He said Tehran remained open to discussions but would not set a timeline. “Iran remains prepared to engage in dialogue, but we cannot put an exact time on the dialogue.”
“There have been messages going back and forth between Iran and the United States through intermediaries,” he said.
Iran and the US held five rounds of talks between April and May this year in Muscat, Oman, and Rome, Italy. A sixth round was scheduled to take place in Muscat on June 15, but was indefinitely suspended after Israel launched airstrikes on Iran two days earlier.
The ensuing 12-day conflict in June included US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities at Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow, and Israeli strikes that destroyed critical infrastructure, killing several senior military and scientists as well as hundreds of civilians. Iran responded with missile strikes that killed 32 Israelis.
