A senior advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that the US must respect Iran’s “red lines” if it wants to resume nuclear negotiations and not demand that Tehran abandon uranium enrichment.
“They say Iran must abandon uranium enrichment, but this is one of our red lines. If talks are conditional on halting enrichment, they simply won’t happen,” Ali Velayati said during a meeting with Pakistan’s interior minister in Tehran, according to Iran’s IRNA news agency.
President Trump has been threatening to bomb Iran again if it resumes its uranium enrichment program, something Tehran says it has a right to as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) since it has pledged not to develop nuclear weapons. It remains unclear how long it would take Tehran to restart enrichment following the US and Israeli attacks on its nuclear program.
Also on Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry denied reports that said a meeting was scheduled between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. “As of now, no date, time, or location has been determined for such a meeting,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei.
Iranian officials have said that they need guarantees that the US or Israel won’t attack during the next round of talks, since previous negotiations were used as cover to launch a surprise war.
The Iranian military is also preparing for the possibility of another war with the US and Israel. “Iran does not trust the ceasefire, while it has different scenarios for any new act of adventurism,” Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh said on Monday.
“The Islamic Republic does not seek to spread war and insecurity to the region, but it is prepared to respond decisively and crushingly to any aggressors’ acts of adventurism,” Nasirzadeh added.
The Wall Street Journal reported that President Trump has signaled to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he would support more Israeli attacks on Iran if Tehran “resumed moving toward a nuclear weapon.” However, there was never any evidence that Tehran was working toward a nuclear weapon, something that was acknowledged by US intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Israel would likely use any Iranian steps toward restarting uranium enrichment as a justification to attack.
