“As stated explicitly in the fatwa (religious decree) issued by Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution (Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei) Iran is not after the production and storing of the nuclear bombs (because) when a country seeks bomb, it works secretively and doesn’t negotiate,” Rouhani said, addressing a number of elites and scholars in the Southern province of Khuzestan on Wednesday.
On February 22, 2012, Ayatollah Khamenei said the Islamic Republic considers the pursuit and possession of nuclear weapons "a grave sin" from every logical, religious and theoretical standpoint.
Former Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said earlier this year that Ayatollah Khamenei's fatwa is binding for Iran, adding, "There is nothing more important in defining the framework for our nuclear activities than the Leader's fatwa."
Rouhani underlined Iran’s resolve to make progress and research in nuclear activities, and said, “We continue the nuclear technology but we are not after bomb.”
Tehran and the six world powers which are negotiating to find a way to their differences over Iran’s peaceful nuclear program agreed to start implementing the Geneva interim nuclear deal on January 20 and fulfill their undertakings simultaneously and on a single day.
On November 24, Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) sealed a six-month Joint Plan of Action to lay the groundwork for the full resolution of the West’s decade-old dispute with Iran over its nuclear energy program.
In exchange for Tehran’s confidence-building bid to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities, the Sextet of world powers agreed to lift some of the existing sanctions against Tehran and continue talks with the country to settle all problems between the two sides.
