WaPo | Iran’s supreme leader expressed pessimism Thursday about a deal
reached last week with six world powers to restrict the country’s
nuclear program, saying he neither supports nor opposes the accord and
demanding that all economic sanctions be lifted immediately upon any
final agreement.
The remarks by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s
ultimate religious and political authority, raised the prospect that
talks on a final accord, following last week’s framework agreement,
could bog down over what he described as “the details” ahead of a June
30 deadline.
In a televised speech marking Iran’s National Day of
Nuclear Technology, Khamenei also ruled out any “extraordinary
supervision measures” over Iran’s nuclear activities and said that
“Iran’s military sites cannot be inspected under the excuse of nuclear
supervision,” the Associated Press reported. But he also repeated his
denials that Iran has any intention of building nuclear weapons, which
he has declared to be forbidden by Islam.
In a separate speech earlier, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani took the
same position on economic sanctions as the supreme leader, saying that
all of them “must be lifted immediately” once a final nuclear deal is
implemented following talks under the framework agreement.
“We will not sign any agreement unless all economic sanctions are
totally lifted on the first day of the implementation of the deal,”
Rouhani said during a ceremony marking the nuclear technology day, which
celebrates the country’s nuclear achievements, AP reported.
