Iran says it will continue nuclear talks with the US, shrugging off
Trump's threats
[May 17, 2025]
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s president said his country will continue
talks with the United States over its rapidly advancing nuclear program
but will not withdraw from its rights because of U.S. threats.
“We are negotiating, and we will negotiate , we are not after war but we
do not fear any threat," President Masoud Pezeshkian said during a
speech to navy officials broadcast by state television Saturday.
“It is not like that they think if they threaten us , we will give up
our human right and definite right,” Pezeshkian said. “We will not
withdraw, we will not easily loose honorable military, scientific,
nuclear in all fields.”
The negotiations have reached the “expert” level, meaning the sides are
trying to reach agreement on the details of a possible deal. But a major
sticking point remains Iran’s enrichment of uranium, which Tehran
insists it must be allowed to do and the Trump administration
increasingly insists the Islamic Republic must give up.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to unleash airstrikes
targeting Iran’s program if a deal isn’t reached. Iranian officials
increasingly warn they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their
stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels.
Earlier on Friday, Trump said Iran received a proposal during the talks,
though he did not elaborate.
During his trip to region this week, Trump at nearly every event
insisted Iran could not be allowed to obtain a nuclear bomb, something
U.S. intelligence agencies assess Tehran is not actively pursuing,
though its program is on the cusp of being able to weaponize nuclear
material.
Mohammad Eslami, the head of Iran’s atomic organization, stressed the
peaceful nature of the program, saying it is under “continuous”
monitoring by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, state TV reported Saturday.
“No country is monitored by the agency like us,” Eslami said, adding
that the agency inspected the country’s nuclear facilities more than 450
time in 2024. “Something about 25% of all the agency inspections” in the
year.
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In this photo released by the Iranian Presidency Office, President
Masoud Pezeshkian speaks to navy officials, in Tehran, Iran,
Saturday, May 17, 2025. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)
Meanwhile, Israel routinely has threatened to strike Iran’s nuclear
facilities if it feels threatened, further complicating tensions in
the Mideast already spiked by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
In his first reaction to Trump’s regional visit, Iran’s Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Trump wasn't truthful when he
made claims about creating peace through power.
“Trump said that he wanted to use power for peace, he lied. He and
the U.S. administration used power for massacre in Gaza, for waging
wars in any place they could,” Khamenei said Saturday during a
meeting with teachers broadcast on state television.
The U.S. has provided Israel with 10-ton bombs to “drop on Gaza
children, hospitals, houses of people in Lebanon and anywhere else
when they can," Khamenei said.
Khamenei, who has the final say on all Iranian state matters,
reiterated his traditional stance against Israel.
“Definitely, the Zionist regime is the spot of corruption, war,
rifts. The Zionist regime that is lethal, dangerous, cancerous tumor
should be certainly eradicated, and it will be," he said, adding
that the U.S. has imposed a pattern on Arab nations under which they
cannot endeavor without U.S. support.
“Surely this model has failed. With efforts of the regional nations,
the U.S. should leave the region, and it will leave," Khamenei said.
Iran has long considered the U.S. military presence in the region as
a threat on its doorstep, especially after Trump pulled the U.S. out
of a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 and reimposed crippling
sanctions.
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