From the Liveblog of
Thursday, February 6, 2025
Iran’s president claims country ‘not seeking nuclear weapons’
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian claims his country is not seeking a nuclear weapon, a day after US President Donald Trump called for a new agreement to prevent it from obtaining one.
“We are not seeking nuclear weapons,” Pezeshkian says in a meeting with foreign diplomats in Tehran, adding that “verifying this issue is an easy task.”
During the meeting, which is broadcast on television, Pezeshkian refers to a long-standing fatwa, or religious edict, by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei prohibiting atomic weapons.
He notes that Iran is not pursuing such weapons because “massacring innocent people is not acceptable in the doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
However, the UN nuclear watchdog has said Iran is currently enriching uranium to levels that have no civilian use, and Iranian leaders have countless times threatened to destroy entire Israeli cities. Israel has in the past revealed what it said was a trove of documents retrieved from Iran that prove the Islamic Republic has been trying to obtain nuclear weapons.
Yesterday, Trump called for a “verified nuclear peace agreement” with Iran, adding that it “cannot have a Nuclear Weapon.”
The US president on Tuesday reinstated his “maximum pressure” policy against Iran over allegations the country is seeking nuclear weapons capability.
