“The enrichment is our right, an inalienable right, and we want to implement this right,” Iravani told CBS News, adding that Iran was ready for negotiations but “unconditional surrender is not negotiation. It is dictating the policy toward us.”
But Iravani stated Tehran is “ready for the negotiation, but after this aggression, it is not proper condition for a new round of the negotiation, and there is no request for negotiation and meeting with the president”.
The Iranian UN envoy also denied that there are any threats from his government to the safety of Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or against the agency’s inspectors, who are accused by some Iranian officials of helping Israel justify its attacks. IAEA inspectors are currently in Iran but do not have access to Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Pressed by the CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan on whether he would condemn calls for the arrest and execution of the IAEA head, which Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said an Iranian daily newspaper had made, Iravani stressed that he would.
“There is no any threat,” Irvani said, but acknowledged that Iran’s parliament had suspended cooperation with IAEA. The inspectors, he added, “are in Iran, they are in safe conditions, but the activity has been suspended. They cannot have access to our site … our assessment is that they have not done their jobs.”
Iravani also responded to questions on why Tehran has not accepted proposals for a diplomatic solution. Referring to President Donald Trump’s “unconditional surrender” demand, Irvani stated that the US “is dictating the policy towards us. If they are ready for negotiation, they will find us ready for that. But if they want to dictate us, it is impossible for any negotiation with them.”
Irvani’s comments comes as western nations, including the US, are pushing for Iran to resume negotiations over its nuclear program a week after the US launched strikes on three facilities, setting off days of heated dispute over whether the facilities has been “totally obliterated”, as Trump initially claimed, or if they had delayed but not destroyed the program.
Grossi told CBS that there is “agreement in describing this as a very serious level of damage” but went on to say that Iran will likely will be able to begin to produce enriched uranium within months.
“The capacities they have are there,” he stated.
“They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that. But as I said, frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there.”
On Sunday, President Trump again dismissed reports that Iran had moved 400kg (880lb) on 60% enriched uranium ahead of the strikes on Fordow, regarded as the center of Iran’s enrichment program.
“It’s very hard to do, dangerous to do, it’s very heavy, plus we didn’t give them much notice because they didn’t know they we were coming,” Trump told the Fox News host Maria Bartiromo.
