Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi repeated his demand the United States pay some form of “compensation” for bombing the nation’s illicit nuclear sites in an interview published Thursday, stating Tehran has zero appetite for resuming talks with the West.
The Iranian Islamist regime regularly demands “compensation” for a variety of actions that the United States has taken in the past decade to protect itself from Iranian terrorism. Iran’s regime-controlled “courts” have demanded outlandish sums of money from Washington for targeted attacks against its top terrorist commanders, insisting that the nation fell victim to unwarranted military action.
Araghchi similarly described President Donald Trump’s decision to approve airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities as inexplicable aggression against a peaceful state. In reality, Iran has long maintained the title of world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism and fueled violence throughout the Middle East – including Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon – and in South America.
The Iranian foreign minister made his remarks to the Financial Times, addressing Trump’s airstrikes. On June 21, the president delivered a national address in which he stated that he had ordered targeted attacks on nuclear enrichment facilities at Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow, believed to be Iran’s largest uranium enrichment facilities. Trump stated that the sites were “completely and totally obliterated” and that the move was necessary in response to the United Nations’ nuclear agency revealing that Iran had escalated its enrichment far beyond what would be necessary for any conceivable civilian use, posing a major threat to America’s allies in the region and the world.
The strikes followed five rounds of fruitless negotiations between Iran and America, pursuing an agreement that would limit Iran’s nuclear development and lead to reduced U.S. sanctions on the country.
Araghchi told the Financial Times, according to a summary by the Iranian state news agency PressTV, that the airstrikes had eroded trust in America from his superiors.
“They should explain why they attacked us in the middle of … negotiations, and they have to ensure that they are not going to repeat that [during future talks],” Araghchi was quoted as saying. “And they have to compensate [Iran for] the damage that they have done.”
“We need real confidence-building measures from their side,” he insisted, adding that “anti-negotiation feels” in his regime were “very high.”
“People are telling me, ‘Don’t waste your time anymore, don’t be cheated by them … if they come to negotiations it’s only a cover-up for their other intentions,” the top diplomat shared. He nonetheless described as a return to talks as “not impossible” but requiring a significant financial commitment by America.
PressTV noted that Araghchi did not specify exactly how much money Iran wants the United States to pay, presumably for Iran to rebuild its illicit nuclear sites. Araghchi insisted that Iran would never accept an end to uranium enrichment, which Trump’s negotiations described as non-negotiable in any future deal.
“An enrichment program can never exist in the state of Iran ever again. That’s our red line,” Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview in May. “No enrichment.”
“That means dismantlement, it means no weaponization, and it means that Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan—those are their three enrichment facilities — have to be dismantled,” he added.
Araghchi has repeatedly described monetary payments as a requirement for Iran to return to the negotiating table. Immediately after the airstrikes in late June, the foreign minister said that Trump must offer “compensation for damages,” describing the hypothetical payments as a “serious issue.”
Araghchi then sent a letter shortly thereafter to the United Nations urging the global body to pressure America to offer “reparation” for the destroyed nuclear sites.
“We solemnly request that the Security Council recognize the Israeli regime and the United States as the initiators of the act of aggression and their subsequent responsibility,” he wrote, “therefore including compensation and reparation.”
The American airstrikes followed the launch of “Operation Rising Lion,” an Israeli military engagement to diminish the threat of being targeted by Iranian nuclear weapons. The operation resulted in the elimination of some of Iran’s most prominent and influential military leaders, primarily the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Major General Hossein Salami. Israeli officials announced the operation after the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) condemned Iran in a resolution for violating international law on nuclear development.
The U.N. has yet to respond affirmatively to Araghchi’s request for it to support Iran’s demand for reparations for its nuclear sites.
The Trump administration also does not appear especially open to further negotiations, or to enriching Iran. The State Department announced new sanctions on Thursday intended, according to spokeswoman Tammy Bruce, to “disrupt the Iranian regime’s ability to fund its destabilizing activities, including its nuclear program, support for terrorist groups, and oppression of its own people.”
The sanctions will specifically apply to 20 entities in the Iranian oil industry and one “China-based operator of a crude oil and petroleum products terminal” that aids Iran’s oil industry.
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