Afət Ziyadqızı
Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission member Alaeddin Boroujerdi has said Tehran does not intend to produce weapons of mass destruction, responding to remarks by US Vice President JD Vance. In an interview with Iran-based Nournews, the lawmaker stressed that there has been no significant change in the country’s nuclear policy.
Operative Information Center-OMM reports that, according to Boroujerdi, Iran’s uranium enrichment activities are conducted in line with the principles of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the country’s civilian needs. “Developing an atomic bomb has never been part of Iran’s state policy, and it is not part of it today,” the Iranian lawmaker said.
He said enrichment carried out under rights provided by the NPT was not a matter for Washington to interfere in. Boroujerdi noted that the United States is the only country to have used nuclear weapons and urged the White House to focus on its own nuclear arsenal rather than make what he called unfounded allegations against Iran.
Iranian Atomic Energy Organization head Mohammad Eslami also said a day earlier that his country would not abandon its civilian nuclear program.
In a statement on October 7, US Vice President JD Vance said Tehran would have to “significantly” reduce its uranium enrichment level to end the seven-month military conflict between the two countries and meet Washington’s conditions.
Under the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran was required to limit uranium enrichment to 3.67 percent. After President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the deal in 2018, Tehran raised the level to 60 percent. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in talks before the military operations that Iran was ready to reduce its enrichment level, but firmly rejected the US demand for “zero enrichment.”
