‘Only willing to negotiate on nuclear matter, won’t accept zero enrichment’: Iran lawmaker ahead of nuke talks with US
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "‘Only willing to negotiate on nuclear matter, won’t accept zero enrichment’: Iran lawmaker ahead of nuke talks with US")
File image for representation Photograph: (AFP)
Iran lawmaker Esmail Kowsari said Tehran will negotiate with the US only on nuclear issues, reject zero uranium enrichment, and expressed pessimism over talks amid ongoing sanctions and tensions.
Amid the diplomatic tensions between Iran and the US over nuclear talks, an Iranian lawmaker said that Tehran had informed America that the upcoming talks will sitrictly restricted to the nuclear issue.
“Before holding negotiations with the Americans, we told them that we are only willing to negotiate on the nuclear matter,” Esmail Kowsari told the Tehran-based Didban Iran website on Tuesday (Feb 10). Kowsari, who is a member of the parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, added that under any deal, Tehran would not accept eliminating enrichment.
“We will by no means accept zero enrichment, and even if an agreement is reached, it will be solely on the nuclear issue,” the IRGC general-turned-lawmaker said. “I am not optimistic about the negotiations between Iran and the United States yielding results,” he added.
'Iran will dilute its enriched uranium if...'
Iran's atomic chief Mohammad Eslami said on Monday (Feb 09), “In conclusion, in response to a question about the possibility of diluting 60 per cent enriched uranium… the head of the Atomic Energy Organisation said that this depends on whether all sanctions would be lifted in return," the official IRNA news agency reported.
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Diluting uranium simply means mixing it with a water blend to reduce the enrichment level. As per the AFP, before US and Israeli strikes on its nuclear facilities in June 2025, Iran had been enriching uranium to 60 per cent, which far exceeded the 3.67 per cent limit that was allowed under a now-defunct nuclear agreement reached with world powers in 2015.
Western countries, led by the US, have alleged Tehran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, a claim denied by Iran. Moreover, the UN has claimed that Iran is a non-nuclear-weapons state enriching uranium to 60 per cent. It is also unknown where more than 400 kg of highly enriched uranium that Iran possessed before the war has ended up.
