Nuclear facilities not completely destroyed, Iranian foreign minister says
Iran’s foreign minister said on Thursday that his country’s nuclear facilities were not completely destroyed and suggested Tehran still holds some leverage in potential future negotiations over its nuclear program.
“They thought they would completely destroy our nuclear facilities and leave our hands empty in negotiations, then say, ‘Come to negotiate.’ This didn’t happen,” Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister said on Iranian State TV.
“The same won’t happen with snapback, meaning it’s not that the Europeans’ hands will be full; on the contrary, their hands will be completely empty,” he added.
Snapback is the term to describe the mechanism in the 2015 nuclear agreement that would quickly reimpose United Nations sanctions on Iran if it didn’t meet its nuclear commitments. The UK, France, Germany, Russia and China can trigger the mechanism if they find Iran in violation of the agreement. The U.S. lost that ability when President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in his first term.
Araghchi also described what a potential nuclear agreement might look like even after the military strikes by the U.S. and Israel.
“Any potential agreement should have two main pillars: enrichment in Iran and the lifting of sanctions. On the other hand, there could also be another pillar, which is Iran’s commitment to not moving towards a nuclear weapon,” he said. “This is because it aligns with our standards, principles, and beliefs. We have no problem with this either. Therefore, if these three axes exist in any agreement, in our view, the possibility of reaching that agreement exists. Now, the details can be discussed.”