A handout picture provided by Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation shows the head of the country's atomic agency Ali Akbar Salehi looking at Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) during a joint press conference in Tehran on Aug 25 2020. (PHOTO / AFP)
TEHRAN - Iran does not seek nuclear weapons and is against weapons of mass destruction, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), was quoted as saying by Press TV on Wednesday.
Iran would only accept the lifting of sanctions by the United States in a verifiable manner before the latter returns to the JCPOA
Salehi noted that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued a decree against the production, possession and stockpiling of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
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Khamenei's decree sets Iran's course of action, Salehi said in a Tuesday interview with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), an American public broadcaster and television program distributor.
Rejecting step-by-step plan
Iran is opposed to a step-by-step plan for the resolution of its disputes with the United States over the 2015 nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a senior Iranian security official told Press TV on Wednesday.
Iran would only accept the lifting of sanctions by the United States in a verifiable manner before the latter returns to the JCPOA, said the official on the condition of anonymity.
The new US government has failed to lift the sanctions that the ex-team at the White House imposed on Iran after leaving the JCPOA in May 2018, he noted.
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The only way for Tehran to remember its scaled-down commitments under the deal is for Washington to lift all the sanctions, he concluded.
Saeed Khatibzadeh, spokesman for Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on Monday that Iran "does not consider" the step-by-step plan to settle the nuke disputes.
