Iran's Supreme Leader: We Will Sooner Or Later Need Peaceful Nuclear Energy

JAKARTA - Iran's supreme leader said on Thursday it would further develop its peaceful nuclear capacity to maintain independence amid negotiations with world powers to revive the 2015 nuclear pact.

Indirect talks between Tehran and Washington have been held in Vienna, Austria since April last year, amid concerns about Tehran's nuclear progress, which Western powers see as irreversible unless a deal is reached soon.

The other parties to the deal, which US President Donald Trump later abandoned in 2018, have been going back and forth between Iran and the United States. Several sources, including Iranian officials, told Reuters that the next few days will be crucial in determining whether the gap can be closed.

"Sooner or later we will need peaceful nuclear energy. If we don't pursue it, our independence will be harmed," Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a televised address in support of Tehran's negotiating team in Vienna.

"Diplomatic efforts by our revolutionary brothers in trying to get rid of sanctions are also good, but the main task is to neutralize sanctions," Khamenei added, referring to the broad sanctions reimposed by Trump and still in effect.

It is known that since 2019 Tehran has gradually breached the old deal's limits and exceeded them, rebuilding its stockpile of enriched uranium, refining it with higher fissile purity, and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up production. This was after Trump took the US out of the deal a year earlier.

To note, the 2015 Nuclear Deal limited Iran's uranium enrichment to make it harder for Tehran to develop material for nuclear weapons, in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.

Khamenei himself said Iran had never sought nuclear weapons despite such accusations from those it considered "enemies" of the country.