Vice President JD Vance floated the possibility Sunday that the US and Iran could “transform” their relationship through the negotiations in Switzerland— but officials in Tehran made clear they were not there to make friends, and instead were trying to use the negotiations to pry billions out of the US and its allies.
Iran’s president said Sunday that the Islamic Republic will not give up its right to enriched uranium as part of the peace deal with the US — while noting that a deal could save the country’s economy by unlocking sanctioned cash.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s main representative to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps suggested that Iran would participate in the negotiations, but were not worried if they failed.
“Our primary option is jihad, whether on the battlefield or in the streets. We are not worried about the negotiations failing. We have not gone into negotiations out of desperation or helplessness,” Abdollah Haji Sadeghi told Al-Jazeera.
As far as the fate of Iran’s nuclear material, President Masoud Pezeshkian said his nation was willing to provide assurances, yet again, that Iran would not develop nuclear weapons.
But, he said that enriched uranium is still needed to develop power plants in the country.
“What the United States demands is that Iran not build an atomic bomb. This is nothing new, and we can also state in writing that we have no intention of building a bomb,” Pezeshkian said in a statement.
“However, we will not relinquish our right to enrichment, and the other side will have no choice but to accept this right,” he added.
Iran currently possesses nearly 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium, which is believed to be buried underground following joint US-Israeli airstrikes last year.
The atomic material, enriched at 60%, would only be a few technical steps from reaching the 90% enrichment point for weapons-grade uranium.
Iran has long denied claims that it would use the uranium to develop nuclear weapons. President Trump has made keeping nuclear weapons from Iran the primary goal of his war.
Pezeshkian, however, touted an apparent change in Trump’s outlook on the war, including wording the signed memorandum of understanding that claimed the US would no longer take control of Iran’s uranium.
Instead, the US would work with the Islamic republic to help develop nuclear power plants without weapons-grade material. The highly enriched uranium would also have been de-graded under the supervision of the United Nations’ watchdog group.
Pezeshkian also noted that the terms of the peace deal would allow cash to quickly flow into the Islamic republic to help its staggered economy amid sky-high inflation and the plummeting value of its rial currency.
“In just these few days, and until the day before yesterday, we exported nearly 16 million barrels of oil, whereas during the 50-day siege period, it was not possible to move even one barrel of oil,” the Iranian president claimed.
“In this short period, we were able to recover part of our credits and resources and carry out numerous actions,” he said of the immediate sanctions relief.
The US had agreed to provide sweeping sanctions relief and unfrozen funds totaling some $300 billion for Iran’s reconstruction, with some of the financial aid already released and another $6 billion from Qatar on its way, Pezeshkian added.
The Trump administration has maintained that Iran will not get all the funds, and that sanctions would be slapped on immediately, if it failed to keep up with its end of the deal.
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