Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on the eve of negotiations with European powers that Iran will never give up its uranium enrichment program.
“We cannot give up enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride. Our enrichment is so dear to us,” Araghchi said during a Fox News interview on Monday.
Iran’s uranium enrichment is also pointless, if statements from Araghchi and other regime officials are to be believed, because Iran is supposedly uninterested in developing nuclear weapons. Yet the country has repeatedly defied the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the Western world to enrich uranium to levels far beyond any potential civilian purpose.
The IAEA declared Iran in breach of its nuclear non-proliferation obligations on June 12 because the Iranians refused to cooperate fully with nuclear investigators — and because they persisted in stockpiling uranium of near-weapons-grade purity. This censure set the stage for Israel and the United States to bomb Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities in June.
Araghchi confirmed damage from U.S. airstrikes against Iran’s three main enrichment facilities was “serious and severe.”
“The extent of which is now under evaluation by our Atomic Energy Organization. But as far as I know, they are seriously damaged,” he told Fox News.
Araghchi did not comment on the fate of Iran’s existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium, believed to weigh in at roughly 900 pounds. IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said in late June that his organization does not know where Iran’s uranium stockpile is, which represents another breach of Iran’s obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Iran, on the other hand, holds European powers “responsible for negligence” in implementing the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by former President Barack Obama, according to a statement from Araghchi’s ministry on Monday.
The Iranians have long maintained they did not receive the riches they were promised for signing onto the deal, which President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018, because the Iranians were cheating and using the funds they did receive to support international terrorism.
Araghchi wrote a letter to the United Nations on Monday demanding the leaders of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom “be held to account in international criminal tribunals as defendants for complicity in war crimes,” by which he meant those nations supporting Israel.
The letter, and Araghchi’s insistence that Iran will never budge on enriching uranium, will cast a pall over Iran’s meeting with France, Germany, and the UK in Istanbul on Friday.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that the meeting will “take place at the deputy foreign ministry level” following up on a telephone conversation between the European foreign ministers and Araghchi last Thursday.
All three European nations, collectively known as the “E3,” have threatened to invoke the “snapback” provision of the 2015 nuclear deal to restore sanctions against Iran, unless Iran returns to negotiations and makes progress toward ending its uranium enrichment program.
“If EU/E3 want to have a role, they should act responsibly, and put aside the worn-out policies of threat and pressure, including the ‘snap-back’ for which they lack absolutely [any] moral and legal ground,” Araghchi snapped back earlier this week.
Iranian state media said the regime has no intention of compromising at Friday’s meeting and will instead “seriously raise its demands,” including a serious effort to get the E3 investigated for war crimes for supporting Israel.
Araghchi hinted at a press conference on Monday that Tehran is counting on China and Russia to pick up the economic slack if the E3 invoke snapback sanctions. He noted that Iran is holding a “trilateral meeting” with Russia and China on Tuesday focused on “nuclear issues” and the possible “return of sanctions.”
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