JAKARTA - Iran's supreme leader said on Tuesday his country's future should not be tied to the success or collapse of nuclear talks with world powers according to Iranian state media reports.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all the country's matters, including Iran's nuclear program, made the comments about a month after nearly a year of indirect talks between Iran and the United States had stalled.
The two countries insist on blaming each other for a lack of 'political will' to resolve the remaining issues.
"Absolutely do not wait for nuclear negotiations in the country's planning and move forward," Khamenei told a meeting of senior officials, state TV reported, citing Reuters April 13.
"Don't let your work be interrupted whether the negotiations reach a positive or semi-positive or negative outcome," Khamenei stressed.
In 2018, then-US President Donald Trump abandoned the nuclear deal, reimposing sanctions that had crippled Iran's economy. A year later, Iran began violating limits imposed on its nuclear program by a 2015 agreement to complicate bomb development. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful use only.
"The United States broke its promise (by exiting the deal) and now they have reached a stalemate. Meanwhile, Iran is not in such a situation," Khamenei said, calling on Iran's nuclear negotiators to continue to "reject America's excessive demands".
One of the unresolved issues is whether Washington will remove Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), as requested by Tehran for the deal to be revived.
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Critics who removed the IRGC from the list, as well as those who were open to the idea, said the move would have little economic effect, as other US sanctions forced foreign actors to shun the group.
The IRGC, formed by the late founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is more than just a military force and wields enormous political influence. The group was placed under sanctions in 2017 and added to the FTO list in April 2019.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the IRGC was sanctioned as a "specially designated global terrorist" (SDGT) on a separate US list.
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