Iran’s foreign minister claims nuclear weapons have ‘no place’ in its nuclear doctrine

Nuclear weapons have no place in Iran’s nuclear doctrine, the country’s foreign ministry claims on Monday, days after an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander warned that Tehran might change its nuclear policy if pressured by Israeli threats.

“Iran has repeatedly said its nuclear program only serves peaceful purposes. Nuclear weapons have no place in our nuclear doctrine,” ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani says during a press conference in Tehran.

Tehran has always insisted its nuclear program was strictly for peaceful purposes, a claim Israel and much of the Western world dismiss.

Following its unprecedented attack on Israel last week, the IRGC commander in charge of nuclear security Ahmad Haghtalab said last week that threats of a counterattack by Israel could lead Tehran to “review its nuclear doctrine and deviate from its previous considerations.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has the last say on Tehran’s nuclear program, which the West suspects has military purposes.

In 2021, Iran’s then-intelligence minister said Western pressure could push Tehran to seek nuclear weapons, the development of which Khamenei ostensibly banned in a fatwa, or religious decree, in the early 2000s.

“Building and stockpiling nuclear bombs is wrong and using it is haram [religiously forbidden]… Although we have nuclear technology, Iran has firmly avoided it,” Khamenei reiterated in 2019.

However, Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in February that Iran continued to enrich uranium at rates up to 60 percent purity, which is far beyond the needs for commercial nuclear use and is a short technical step away from weapons-grade 90%.