'National pride': Iran won't stop nuclear enrichment
Prior to the war in June, Tehran and Washington held five rounds of nuclear talks mediated by Oman but could not agree on the extent to which Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium.
Israel and Washington say Iran was close to enriching to levels that would allow it to quickly produce a nuclear weapon, while Tehran says its enrichment program is for civilian purposes only.
"It is stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe. But obviously we cannot give up enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists," Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Fox News.
"And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride."
The foreign minister said the damage to the nuclear facilities in Iran after US and Israeli strikes was serious and was being evaluated further.
Araghchi also said Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was in "good health" and Tehran was open to talks with Washington, but those will not be direct "for the time being".
US ally Israel attacked Iran on June 13 and the Middle Eastern rivals then engaged in an air war for 12 days in which Washington also bombed Iran's nuclear facilities. A ceasefire was reached in late June.
Iran is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Israel is not. The UN nuclear watchdog says it has "no credible indication" of an active, co-ordinated weapons program in Iran. Tehran maintains its nuclear program is solely meant for civilian purposes.
Israel is the only Middle Eastern country believed to have nuclear weapons and said its war against Iran was aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.
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Yet Israel continues to imply that Hamas is the lethal force that it was even 12 months ago, and that it is Hamas, rather than Israel, that is stopping aid getting into Gaza: a proposition firmly disputed and rejected by both aid agencies and the United Nations. "A large proportion of the population of Gaza is starving," World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this week. "I don't know what you would call it other than mass starvation. And it's man-made", he said, asserting the man-made cause of the mass starvation is the aid blockade imposed by Israel. Man-made mass starvation is considered a crime against humanity, as is the forced displacement of people. The reality of the situation on the ground in Gaza, and the spectre of children dying of malnutrition or starvation, sits at such extraordinary odds with the language of spokespeople for both the Netanyahu government and the IDF. In the face of growing international outrage about growing signs of widespread starvation in Gaza, Israeli Government spokesman David Mencer, said that "in Gaza today there is no famine caused by Israel". "There is however, a man-made shortage engineered by Hamas. Now, too often the full story is not being told. The suffering exists because Hamas has created it. The suffering exists because Hamas has made it." One of the world's most lethal military and security forces — forces that can run operations that wipe out large sections of the leadership of Hezbollah in precision operations in Iran and Lebanon — regularly tell us that their operations in Gaza are planned with equal precision, yet somehow manage to kill and maim thousands of civilians as well as aid workers, doctors and journalists. The United States and, for that matter, some Arab states that might be able to exert some influence on Israel remain deafeningly silent. The international community beyond the United States has clearly been trying to coordinate a gradual ramp up in pressure on Israel — and for that matter the Trump administration — on the basis that it needs to have further sanctions in reserve against administrations in Tel Aviv and Washington with little care for what others think. But the human crisis in Gaza has made such a cautious approach look much too weak. Analysts watching how Donald Trump has behaved in the various international crises in which he has intervened, or promised to intervene, believe he is happiest when he can make a short, sharp, effective intervention (like the stealth bombing operation in Iran) and can then claim some success. But they also believe that the US president likes to be seen to be running things. The question, therefore, is whether the push by other countries to ramp up the pressure on Israel will provoke him to act, lest he be perceived to not be directing events. Whatever now happens, Israel's actions not only risk it appearing to be a pariah, but potentially a rogue state. And if that is correct, it implies a very different treatment by the rest of the world than the one it has received until now. Laura Tingle is the ABC's Global Affairs Editor.
