Iran’s deputy foreign minister said the country’s nuclear program remains “intact” despite admitting that US and Israeli strikes in June severely damaged several facilities, in an interview with CNN on Sunday.
Iran’s “peaceful nuclear program is intact, as we are speaking,” CNN quoted Saeed Khatibzadeh as saying in a interview.
He acknowledged that the strikes had “ruined many of our infrastructure, machineries” and “buildings,” but said the program was “very much based on our indigenous knowledge” and dispersed across a “huge country – 90 million people.”
“And this country is not a country that you can bomb and then think that you are going to ruin everything,” Khatibzadeh added.
The 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June and subsequent US airstrikes targeted the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites.
US President Donald Trump had initially said Fordow had been "obliterated," but an early US intelligence assessment indicated the attacks badly damaged the three facilities but may have set Iran’s program back by only up to two years.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a confidential report Wednesday that checking Iran’s stock of highly enriched uranium was “long overdue,” with inspectors still barred from entering the bombed sites.
CNN's report said Khatibzadeh did not comment on whether enrichment was taking place at Iran’s facilities, but said any future dialogue with the United States would require recognition of Iran’s right to enrich uranium.
“Delusions of zero enrichment inside Iran or trying to deprive Iran from its basic rights is not going to be an option for Iran,” CNN quoted Khatibzadeh as saying.
Khatibzadeh’s remarks come as Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran is no longer enriching uranium after Israeli and US strikes in June, but added the country will not give up its right to enrichment or nuclear technology.
