Key points
- Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says, “Maximum pressure has been a failed policy”
- Iran does not work for a nuclear weapon: Araghchi
- Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued a fatwa to ban weapons of mass destruction
ISLAMABAD: “If the main issue is that Iran should not pursue nuclear weapons, this is achievable and not a difficult matter,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters after a cabinet meeting in the capital, stressing that “maximum pressure has been a failed policy”.
He further said that Iran’s position that it does not work for a nuclear weapon has been clear and that it has been a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued a fatwa, or high-level religious ruling, to ban weapons of mass destruction, according to Al Jazeera.
Iran is committed to defending its legal rights related to its peaceful nuclear programme with all possible means, stated Ali Shamkhani, a political advisor to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, during a visit to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) on Tuesday, according to Tehran Times.
Peaceful nuclear programme
“There is nothing we won’t do to guard our right to a peaceful nuclear programme,” Samkhani said, according to a report published on the AEOI’s website.
Shamkhani’s comments match with past statements from other high-ranking Iranian officials.
Kamal Kharrazi, an advisor to Iran’s Leader and head of the country’s Foreign Policy Council, warned in an interview, last year, that Iran would rethink its doctrine if its nuclear sites were harmed.
“[Iran has] no intention of producing a nuclear bomb, but if [its] existence is threatened, we will be forced to change our nuclear doctrine,” he told the Financial Times in May.
