“If the issue is nuclear weapons, then yes, we too consider this type of weapon unacceptable,” Abbas Araghchi said in a televised speech, as cited by the state-run IRNA news agency.
“We share this perspective with Western countries on this issue,” added Araghchi, who is the chief nuclear negotiator with Washington.
Western powers have long accused Tehran of seeking to acquire a nuclear weapon despite top officials repeatedly stating that such arms have no place in the Islamic republic.
“We do not recognize any place for nuclear weapons in the doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Friday.
While Iranian officials have ruled out pursuing nuclear weapons, they have said that uranium enrichment is an integral right.
“When the opposing parties say that you should not have enrichment, they are actively trying to impose a kind of dominance and superiority on us,” Araghchi said. “Nuclear energy is an inalienable right of the Iranian people.”
“We, like other countries, have the right to benefit from peaceful nuclear technology,” he said.
Washington’s negotiator, Steve Witkoff, has said that Iran must agree to zero uranium enrichment, that the US “could not authorize even one percent” enrichment by Tehran.
Last week, Araghchi said the talks will fail if the US sticks to this demand.
Indirect, Oman-mediated talks between Tehran and Washington began on April 12, with the fifth and most recent round held on May 23.
The revived talks mark the most substantial engagement between the two sides since the US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal under which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
In 2018, President Trump, during his first term in office, withdrew the US from the agreement and reimposed sweeping sanctions on Iran. In response, Tehran gradually scaled back its compliance with the deal.
