TEHRAN — Iran will not retaliate further for the United States’ attacks against its nuclear program, a senior government official said Thursday, saying his country is open to negotiations with Washington but has no plans to stop uranium enrichment.
In an interview with NBC News in Tehran, Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi said the U.S. had caused “serious damage” to Iran’s nuclear program with what he called “a naked act of aggression” on June 21.
Two days later, Iran launched a missile attack against an American military base in Oman. This saw some flights diverted from the busy international hub of Doha, in the United Arab Emirates, but no one was injured and President Donald Trump called it “very weak.”
Asked if Iran planned further retaliation, Takht-Ravanchi said, “As long as there is no act of aggression being perpetrated by the United States against us, we will not respond again.”
The American attack followed strikes by Israel launched June 12 that not only targeted Iran’s nuclear program but killed dozens of top military officials and nuclear scientists, as well as almost 1,000 civilians, including 38 children, Iran says.
Iran responded with missiles that rained down on Tel Aviv and other cities, killing 38 people, according to Israeli officials.
The exchange of missiles came as Iran was in negotiations with Trump on its nuclear program, which it agreed to curtail as part of a 2015 deal, but which then fell apart after the American president walked away.
Takht-Ravanchi asked “how can we trust the Americans?” following the attacks during these negotiations. “We want them to explain as to why they misled us, why they took such an egregious action against our people,” he added.
Even so, he suggested that his nation would be open to new talks if these requests are satisfied.
“We are for diplomacy” and “we are for dialogue,” he said, But the U.S. government needs “to convince us that they are not going to use military force while we are negotiating,,” he said. “That is an essential element for our leadership to be in a position to decide about the future round of talks.”
Iran denies that it wants to build a nuclear bomb, and as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970, commonly known as the NPT, it is entitled to enrich uranium for nuclear power plants.
However the International Atomic Energy Agency and others have become concerned at Iran’s enriching of uranium to 60% — near to the 90% needed to make a bomb — which it started doing after Trump walked away from the 2015 nuclear deal.
Asked if Iran planned to continue, Takht-Ravanchi said, “Our policy has not changed on enrichment.” Under the NPT, “Iran has every right to do enrichment within its territory,” he said. “The only thing that we have to observe is not to go for militarization.”
Iran, he said, “ready to engage with others to talk about the scope, the level, the capacity of our enrichment program.”
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has suggested that Iran’s 880 pounds of highly-enriched uranium may have been moved somewhere else before the attacks. Takht-Ravanchi declined to comment.
“I do not know where those materials are, and I will stop at that,” he said.
