Iran to resume nuclear programme as a matter of ‘national pride'

Times

22-07-2025

Iran will resume its nuclear programme as a matter of 'national pride', its foreign minister said on Monday.
Abbas Araghchi conceded that uranium enrichment had been halted by the US bombing of three main facilities a month ago after a breakdown in talks with Washington and targeted killings of nuclear scientists by Israel.
But he said that this was a temporary hiatus and the regime in Tehran remained committed to nuclear development, as well as to the production of more missiles.
'Our enrichment is so dear to us,' Araghchi told Fox News's Special Report with Bret Baier.
'It is stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe. But obviously we cannot give up on enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists,' he said.
'Now, more than that, it is a question of national pride.'
Araghchi would not be drawn on the extent of the destruction caused when US stealth bombers dropped 12 'bunker buster' Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs on the Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant, and two more on the Natanz Nuclear Facility on June 22. The Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre was targeted by Tomahawk missiles fired from a submarine.
'Our facilities have been damaged — seriously damaged,' Araghchi said. 'The extent of which is now under evaluation by our atomic energy organisation. But as far as I know, they are seriously damaged.'
President Trump said that the strikes 'completely and totally obliterated' Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities.
Araghchi said Iran was not ready for direct talks with the US but eventually wanted a negotiated solution allowing it to continue civil nuclear power enrichment.
'We are ready to do any confidence-building measure needed to prove that Iran's nuclear programme is peaceful and would remain peaceful for ever and Iran would never go for nuclear weapons,' he said. 'In return, we expect them to lift their sanctions. This is a win-win game and we are ready to engage in that. We cannot start these negotiations in a direct way. We still prefer indirect negotiations.'
Pushed on why Iran kept enriching towards the higher levels required for nuclear weapons, Araghchi added: 'We remain committed to below 5 per cent to produce fuel for nuclear power plants and we also enriched up to 20 per cent because we have a research reactor in Tehran … so we are enriching uranium for our own needs.
'We once went up to 60 per cent and that was after the sabotage in our nuclear facilities … I was a negotiator at that time. I told our interlocutors that we immediately go down if a nuclear deal is achieved.'
He said Iran's main nuclear site was buried deep underground not because it was sinister but to protect it from attack.
Its missile programme was in 'good shape', he insisted, despite being targeted by numerous Israeli attacks in June.
'Our missiles are our most reliable means of defence. So we continue our missile programme,' he said. 'Right now, it's still in a very good shape. We still have a good number of missiles to defend ourselves.'
Araghchi said that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader who is rarely seen in public, was 'in very good health' and that 'the whole system in Iran is quite stable and strong'.
He denied allegations that Iran was seeking the assassination of Trump or other leading US officials in revenge for the killing of Qasem Soleimani, the leader of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in 2020. 'Maybe some individuals here or there have said things like that but that has never been Iran's official position,' Araghchi said.
Asked about Khamenei's statement in 2019 that the chant of 'Death to America' 'means death to Trump', Araghchi said: 'The supreme leader and other officials in Iran have always said that death to America is in fact death to the hegemonic policies of the United States, not to the people of the United States … This is not our policy to kill anybody outside Iran, let alone the president of another country.'
Prosecutors in Manhattan have said that the IRGC commissioned the assassination of Trump last September from an Afghan man who emigrated to the US as a child.
Christopher Wray, the FBI director at the time, said Iran 'has been conspiring with criminals and hitmen to target and gun down Americans on US soil and that simply won't be tolerated'.
Araghchi also referred to Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis as 'freedom fighters … for a just cause'. Asked if this included wiping out Israel, he said: 'Well, we have never said that … that is up to them. They are fighting for their own homeland, so they may say anything. But this has never been Iran's policy, to wipe out Israel from the map.'
Iran faces further international sanctions if it fails to reach a nuclear agreement by the end of August, with talks due to be held with officials from Britain, France and Germany on Friday. Tehran maintains that its nuclear programme is solely meant for civilian purposes, while the US said it struck because it feared Iran was days or weeks away from being able to construct a nuclear weapon.