Khamenei says Iran does not seek nuclear weapons, rules out US talks

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Tuesday doubled down on a key sticking point in a diplomatic standoff with the United States, insisting again that Iran would not renounce domestic enrichment of uranium.

"Negotiating with the United States under the current conditions carries harms for Iran, some of which are irreparable, because the American side has predetermined the outcome of the negotiations, meaning they have stated they will only accept talks whose result is the shutdown of Iran’s nuclear activities and enrichment," he said.

"This is not negotiation, this is dictation," Khamenei declared in a speech hours after Trump had belittled him in a speech before the United Nations as Iran's "so-called" Supreme Leader.

Khamenei blasted Trump for calling on Iran to end domestic enrichment, saying, “it is clear that the Iranian people give a slap in the face to the person saying this and will not accept it.”

“We are very close to implementing sanctions against Iran,” Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul was quoted as saying in an interview with Al Arabiya on Tuesday, warning that Tehran was “heading down a very bad path.”

He added that Iran had failed to take advantage of opportunities to reach a nuclear agreement, but “the door to negotiations remains open to Iran even after sanctions are imposed.”

Tehran does not need and seek to develop nuclear weapons, so it enriches uranium to up to 60% purity, unlike nuclear-armed countries that enrich it up to 90% purity, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in a speech on Tuesday.

"Iran lacked the technology to enrich uranium, and our enemies did not want us to have it. Our scientists managed to achieve the know-how," he added.

He said enriched uranium is very valuable for Iran as it has applications in various aspects of people's lives.

"People benefit from enriched uranium in agriculture, industry, nutrition, environment, education and research, power generation, and many other areas."

"There was nothing in the E3/EU-Araghchi meeting today that made Snapback less likely," Wall Street Journal correspondent Laurence Norman reported citing unnamed sources.

“This is the highest number of recorded executions in more than 30 years,” IHR said in a statement. Iran executed at least 5,000 political prisoners in 1988, according to Amnesty International.

From Jan. 1 to Sept. 23, IHR said it had verified 1,000 executions, including 64 in the past week alone — an average of more than nine a day.

The group said the figures represented a minimum, as many cases went unreported.

“In recent months the Islamic Republic has begun a mass killing campaign in Iran’s prisons, the dimensions of which, in the absence of serious international reactions, are expanding every day,” IHR Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said in a statement.

“The widespread, arbitrary executions of prisoners without due process and fair trial rights amount to crimes against humanity and must be placed at the top of the international community’s agenda.”

IHR said most executions were for drug-related and other non-lethal offences, which do not meet the “most serious crimes” threshold under international law.

According to its data, 50% were for drug charges, 43% for murder, 3% for security-related charges such as baghy (armed rebellion) and moharebeh (waging war against God), 3% for rape and 1% for espionage for Israel.

Only 11% of executions were announced by official sources, with none of the drug-related cases disclosed publicly, the group added.

The organization urged the UN Human Rights Council’s Fact-Finding Mission on Iran to investigate the executions, citing their “scale, systematic nature and political function to intimidate and create societal fear.”

At least 975 people were executed in Iran in 2024, a 17% increase from the previous year, making it one of the world’s leading users of the death penalty, according to rights monitors.