'Uranium Not Leaving Iran': Tehran's Firm Response To Pak's Asim Munir On Transfer Plan

Iran has rejected the proposal to send its enriched uranium to a third country, with Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei telling Pakistani defence chief Asim Munir that Tehran would not allow any nuclear material to leave the country. As part of Pakistan's effort to end the Iran-US war, Islamabad has proposed that Tehran should transfer part of its enriched uranium to another country.

"Not even a tiny bit of enriched nuclear material will leave Iran," Rezaei, Iran's secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, told the visiting Pakistani military leader, who is in Tehran as part of a renewed push to mediate a peace deal between the Islamic Republic and the United States.

"Such materials constitute a major asset and national wealth for the Iranian people, intended for use within the country," he added. 

Rezaei insisted that there would be no negotiations with the US until Washinton takes meaningful steps to build trust -- "a process that must begin with the fulfilment of Iran's conditions."

Iran's chief negotiator and parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and President Masoud Pezeshkian also made similar remarks to Munir. 

During his meeting with Munir, Pezeshkian rejected the idea of negotiations under US threats and said, "The Americans must first remove the threats and sanctions; only then can we engage in dialogue."

"Today, our nation does not trust America. It believes that if we enter the negotiations, they (the Americans) will attack us again."

Ghalibaf said, "We have nothing new to say; America cannot gain Iran's trust unless it fulfils the seven conditions." He noted that "threats and military manoeuvres cannot influence Iran's strategic decisions."

Pakistan is a key intermediary between the warring US and Iran, but mediation efforts have effectively been at an impasse since an Islamabad-backed truce in June failed to create a framework for a permanent resolution to the conflict and fell through. Recent indirect talks between Washington and Tehran on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly also failed to produce a breakthrough.

Iran's Demands

The Middle East war was sparked in late February by the United States and Israel when they launched a wave of deadly attacks on Iran, while Washington and Tehran were in the midst of negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme.

To stop the fighting on its part, Tehran has demanded, among other things, a ceasefire across the Middle East, the unfreezing of its assets abroad and the lifting of sanctions on its oil sector.

Tehran had previously maintained it would not hand over its nuclear materials -- enriched to 60 per cent, close to the atomic bomb threshold of 90 per cent -- to any country but had hinted at the possibility of diluting them within Iran's borders.

Washington and its allies have imposed waves of sanctions on Iran, accusing it of seeking to build nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran has long denied.