US (Washington Insider Magazine)-DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (Transatlantic Today) — While the United States questioned Tehran’s offer, Iran issued a formal response early Friday in talks on a final draft of a roadmap for parties to repair its damaged nuclear agreement with world powers.
According to Nasser Kanaani, the spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, “the sent text has a constructive approach with the aim of finalizing the negotiations.”
Similar to the last session of written offers and replies, Iran did not make any public apologies for its statements. According to ABC NEWS, Iran’s Shiite theocracy’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has the last decision on all affairs of state and has mainly been quiet about the negotiations in recent weeks.
The European Union has acted as a middleman for the indirect negotiations since former President Donald Trump unexpectedly withdrew the United States from the agreement in 2018. The State Department in Washington verified it received Tehran’s response through the EU.
Iran significantly reduced its uranium enrichment as part of the 2015 agreement in exchange for the easing of economic sanctions. Iran was only permitted to possess 660 pounds of uranium that was enriched up to 3.67% under the terms of the agreement, all of which was constantly monitored by IAEA officials and surveillance cameras.
The most recent IAEA estimate, however, indicates that Iran currently maintains a stockpile of about 8,370 pounds of enriched uranium. For non-proliferation specialists, Iran’s ability to enrich uranium to a 60% purity level, which is just a small technological step away from 90%, is even more concerning. According to those analysts, Iran has sufficient 60% enriched uranium to make at least one nuclear bomb’s worth of fuel.
Iranian officials now freely discuss Tehran’s potential to pursue an atomic weapon if it is desired, despite long-standing claims that their programme is peaceful. Since the deal fell through, there have been a number of assaults across the wider Middle East, which has increased fears of a larger battle erupting.
On subjects like the American sanctions aimed against Tehran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, both Iran and the U.S. have attempted to depict the current discussions as bending in their favor.
Iran’s hardline President Ebrahim Raisi insisted earlier this week that an IAEA inquiry into evidence of man-made uranium discovered at unauthorized nuclear facilities in the nation must be stopped.
