ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei said Tuesday that Tehran would not give up “even a particle” of its enriched nuclear material, stressing that there would be no negotiations with the US until Washington meets Tehran’s conditions.
Rezaei’s comments were during a meeting with Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir, who arrived in Tehran on Tuesday in his fifth visit since the start of US&Israeli war against Iran back on February 28.
Munir met Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian and Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf as well.
"Not even a tiny bit of enriched nuclear material will leave Iran," Rezaei said according to Iranian state television.
Rezaei described the material as a national asset and said negotiations with Washington could not proceed until the United States took steps to rebuild trust and fulfilled Iran's conditions.
His remarks echoed the position of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has opposed transferring Iran's highly enriched uranium abroad.
Rezaei’s comments come as Tehran insists that its stockpile of enriched uranium will remain inside the country, despite US demands for major restrictions on its nuclear program.
Munir also met with President Pezeshkian, who slammed the US for its growing sanctions and naval blockade, saying this signaled the US wasn’t serious about negotiations.
“The people of Iran do not trust the United States today and believe that if we negotiate, they will attack us again,” Pezeshkian said.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf, one of the main negotiators, told Munir that the US needed to fulfill its conditions before they could hold further negotiations.
“We have nothing new to say, and the US cannot win Iran’s trust without fulfilling its seven conditions,” he said.
Iran signed a memorandum of understanding back in April in Islamabad with Pakistani mediation after 45 days of fighting. Disagreements over the administration of the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear program meant the agreement was short-lived, and tensions have risen in the recent weeks.
The US President Donald Trump has continued threatening a renewal of hostilities before or after US midterm elections in the beginning of November, saying he will “finish the job” if Iran didn’t agree to US demands.
Ghalibaf said Iran has “deep rooted distrust” towards the US. “The Trump administration’s violation of the Islamabad memorandum of understanding and the president’s repeated threats have further deepened that mistrust,” he said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tuesday that indirect negotiations were continuing through Pakistan and Qatar. Tehran has offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if Washington accepts and implements its conditions, including lifting restrictions on Iranian oil exports and ending the blockade on Iranian ports.
In late September, an Iranian delegation attended the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, which on the sidelines of the assembly, Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi met with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and presented an initial proposal that included lifting the US blockade on Iranian southern ports and releasing frozen Iranian funds in exchange for reopening the contentious Strait of Hormuz within seven days as talks progressed.
Ibrahim bin Sultan Al Hashmi, director of the media and communication department at Qatar's foreign ministry, told reporters on Tuesday that visits and exchange of messages between negotiators and mediators continued. "For us, as meditators, we eye a lasting and immediate solution to the crisis. We believe it is the only solution, and it must be reached through the negotiations table," he added.
There is no military solution, he added.
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