TEHRAN -- The spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) said Saturday the country’s nuclear industry is completely impervious to bids to undermine it, stressing that enemies have no option but to pursue the path of diplomacy vis-à-vis the Iranian nuclear issue.
“For our enemies, whose main goal is to undermine Iran’s nuclear industry and scientists, there is no option left but diplomacy,” Behrouz Kamalvandi said.
He criticized the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for issuing politically-motivated reports about Iran’s nuclear activities, saying such statements have in numerous occasions portrayed a tarnished and negative image of the country at an international level.
“The enemy is trying to make our nuclear industry only associated with enrichment in the minds of the people. This is while a lot of good work has been carried out in the fields of radiopharmaceuticals and agriculture, and enrichment in the nuclear field is only a small part of it (nuclear program),” the AEOI spokesman said.
Kamalvandi added that enemies believe that Iran should not have the nuclear industry at all and this is the reason they try to show that Tehran is pursuing goals other than the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
The current crisis over Iran’s nuclear program was created in May 2018, when former U.S. president Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the 2015 nuclear deal formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and imposed tough economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic under what he called the “maximum pressure” policy.
The talks to salvage the agreement kicked off in the Austrian capital of Vienna in April last year, months after Joe Biden succeeded Trump, with the intention of examining Washington’s seriousness in rejoining the deal and removing anti-Iran sanctions.
Despite notable progress, the U.S. indecisiveness and procrastination caused multiple interruptions in the marathon talks.