(Breitbart)—Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi suggested in an interview on Thursday that Iran will be demanding “compensation for damages” to its illicit nuclear development sites in any future diplomatic engagements with America after President Donald Trump approved airstrikes targeting the facilities.
Araghchi indicated that no plans currently exist to reboot the Iran-U.S. talks that began in April. Araghchi led a delegation to meet with Trump’s special envoy on the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, via the mediation of the government of Oman for five rounds of talks. The two sides never agreed on the objective of the talks — the Americans insisted the goal was limiting the threat of Iran’s illicit uranium enrichment, while Iran claimed the goal was to convince the United States to lift sanctions on Iran — and the two sides never came to an agreement on a framework for a nuclear deal to replace the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
A sixth round of talks was postponed indefinitely after the government of Israel launched a military operation on June 13 to eliminate some of Iran’s top military officials, following a resolution by the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) condemning Iran’s violations of international law regarding nuclear non-proliferation. The Israeli operation eliminated the head of the terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hossein Salami, the chief of staff of the armed forces, multiple nuclear scientists, and other top officials. Israel also managed to significantly degrade Iran’s missile stockpiles and equipment such as missile launchers.
The United States entered the conflict on June 21. President Donald Trump confirmed that day that he had ordered airstrikes to destroy three key nuclear sites — Isfahan, Fordow, and Natanz — and declared the uranium enrichment facilities “completely and totally obliterated.” IAEA chief Rafael Grossi appeared to confirm significant destruction of the sites in an interview on Wednesday, stating that the intelligence the agency possesses indicates that the centrifuges used to enrich uranium, at least at Fordow, were entirely inoperable.
With the caveat that Iran had expelled IAEA inspectors and not accepted his offer to send inspectors to help assess the damage after the strikes, Grossi told Radio France International (RFI), “we know that, given the potency of these artifacts [the bombs] and the technical characteristics of a centrifuge, these centrifuges are no longer operational.” Grossi referred specifically to Fordow, which he described as the most notorious of the Iranian enrichment sites.
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