Following Khamenei’s statements, Washington renews its commitment not to allow Iran to possess nuclear weapons

The US State Department refrained from commenting directly on Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s statements regarding his country’s readiness to conclude a nuclear deal with the West, but it renewed its position on Tehran’s nuclear program.

A US State Department spokesman reiterated President Joe Biden’s administration’s position that the United States is “committed to never allowing Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.”

“We believe that diplomacy is the best way to achieve this goal on a verifiable and sustainable basis,” the spokesman said in remarks reported by Reuters.

He added that President Biden was clear about not ruling out any options on the table, and continued, “We will not provide a description of the nature of the statements of an Iranian leader.”

Khamenei’s position

And on Sunday, Khamenei declared that it was possible to reach an agreement with the West over Tehran’s nuclear activities if the country’s nuclear infrastructure remained untouched. But he continued, “We cannot trust the counterparties, and we have received many blows because of our trust in flimsy promises.”

Khamenei said that his country had never sought to build a nuclear bomb, adding that “talk about Tehran’s nuclear weapons is a lie and the West knows that. We don’t want to build nuclear weapons because of our religious faith, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to stop it.”

Khamenei added that Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization should continue to work with the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency “within a framework of guarantees.”

Israeli statements

And the newspaper, “Yedioth Ahronoth,” quoted Israeli officials as saying that the possibility of the United States and Iran reaching an agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program is increasing, and they added that Washington will try to give Tel Aviv guarantees in preparation for reaching an agreement with Iran.

The newspaper stated that Washington is holding talks with Iran through Gulf mediators, supervised by the American side, Brett McGurk, who is considered close to the US National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan.

Yedioth Ahronoth said that one of the reasons for not inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington is not to impede reaching an agreement with Iran.

Since April 2021, Iran and the major powers have engaged in talks aimed at reviving the agreement, in which the United States has indirectly participated. Although progress was achieved in these talks, they did not reach the stage of understanding to reactivate the agreement.