In 2018, Donald Trump’s administration rejected the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal, again laying sanctions on the country. When that happened, Iran also dropped the agreement, violating the terms set out. Then in late June, the US and Iran met in Qatar but, after indirect discussions, didn’t decide on the deal. While Iran has denied an interest in nuclear weapons for decades, Western leaders hold doubt over these denials.
As Iran continues to say it’s not interested in nuclear weapons, recent comments have made people doubt Iran’s claims more. After President Biden returned from visiting Israel and Saudi Arabia, Kamal Kharazi, the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, said on Monday that Iran has the capability of making an atomic weapon, but he added that it doesn’t plan to do so. Meanwhile, on Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said during a conference that, amid rising global tensions, the world is just one “miscalculation” away from a nuclear war and that we’ve been “extraordinarily lucky so far.” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also stressed that revisiting the 2015 nuclear deal will be the best move for the United States, Iran and the world.
Key comments:
“It’s no secret that we have become a quasi-nuclear state. This is a fact. And it’s no secret that we have the technical means to produce a nuclear bomb, but we don’t want that, and there has been no decision to do that,” Kamal Kharazi told Al Jazeera on Monday.
The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell Fontelles, said, “I have concluded that the space for additional significant compromises has been exhausted,” concerning the Iran Nuclear Deal.
“We have been extraordinarily lucky so far. But luck is not a strategy. Nor is it a shield from geopolitical tensions boiling over into nuclear conflict. Today, humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the start of a conference of countries belonging to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, calling on nations to “put humanity on a new path towards a world free of nuclear weapons.”
