Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi defended the country’s nuclear programme during the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.
“Nuclear weapons have no place in the defensive doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran,’’ Risia said in his speech to the UN.
International sanctions had not prevented the country from progressing, he added.
In 2015, Tehran signed a nuclear agreement to drastically restrict the enrichment of uranium and allow strict International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, checks.
The move was intended to curtail nuclear weapons in the country.
After the United States pulled out of the agreement in 2018 under then-president Donald Trump, Tehran began enriching uranium to near-weapons-grade purity and restricting IAEA inspections.
On Saturday, Tehran informed the IAEA that it had stripped key experts of their accreditation to inspect the country’s nuclear arsenal.
The move followed the announcement by Germany, France and Britain on Thursday that they would not lift existing sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme.
Negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal have not made significant progress for more than a year.
Also on Monday, the U.S. and Iran carried out a prisoner swap that had been prepared for months and, according to observers, could pave the way for new rounds of talks.
Raisi was accompanied on his trip to the U.S. by Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri, who was leading the nuclear talks for Tehran.
dpa/NAN
