Referring to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent remarks regarding the unilateral sanctions imposed against Iran over its nuclear energy program, Ebrahim Aqa-Mohammadi said, “The Islamic Republic of Iran will never retreat from its rightful positions and nobody in the Islamic Republic of Iran is willing to relinquish this nation’s rights.”
In a meeting with Kazakh Foreign Minister Yerlan Idrsov on October 3, 2012, Clinton said the sanctions could be removed quickly “if the Iranian government were willing to work with the P5+1 (six permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) and the rest of the international community in a sincere manner."
Aqa-Mohammadi further stated that Iran wants to use nuclear energy for humanitarian and medical purposes within the framework of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“The US sanctions imposed against Iran are illegal and they (the Americans) know this as well…. They have imposed sanctions on food and medicine and are mounting pressure on the Iranian nation from all sides but such actions will get them nowhere,” Aqa-Mohammadi said.
The illegal US-engineered sanctions were imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the NPT and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
The IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran's civilian nuclear program has been diverted toward military purposes.
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