Iran’s progress ‘miraculous, extraordinary’ despite sanctions: Nuclear chief
Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Mohammad Eslami says the country has succeeded in making remarkable progress in the nuclear industry despite the enemies’ all-out pressures.
The enemies have always maintained a consistent strategy which was to exert pressure on Iran from the outside and to break the country from within, told a gathering of university students in Mashhad said on Friday.
“In other words, they have consistently pursued a ‘policy of pressure from the outside and breaking from within’, making use of all hardware and software tools at their disposal. However, our progress has been extraordinary,” he added.
He noted that the global arrogance seeks to dominate Iran because it is the second country in the world in terms of oil and gas reserves, with vast mineral reserves.
The region possesses great investment opportunities and has abundant economic advantages, he explained.
The Iranian nuclear chief reiterated that Tehran has consistently declared that it has no intention to develop nuclear bombs and has held negotiations with different sides over the past 25 years, which resulted in the conclusion of the 2015 nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“But they couldn’t even tolerate the JCPOA ,” he said, referring to the US President Donald Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the deal in 2018 and the subsequent imposition of sanctions.
“Sanctions are their main means to stop the country and force it into submission,” he emphasized.
The JCPOA was a multilateral international agreement signed between Iran and five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany in 2015. Under the deal, which came into force in January 2016, Iran had accepted, in good faith, certain limitations on its nuclear program in exchange for a degree of sanctions relief.
However, US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the UNSC-endorsed agreement, imposing severe economic sanctions against Tehran while Iran was adhering to its commitments under the deal and even continued to do so for a year after the US withdrawal.
President Masoud Pezeshkian says Iran’s logic in the nuclear issue is the rights enshrined in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“Despite all this sabotage, the country’s progress in the military industries, nuclear sector, space industry, and other fields has been extraordinary and miraculous,” Eslami said.
He warned that the enemies are leveling accusations against Iran that its nuclear program aims to build bombs and are in fact trying to confuse public opinion so that some people say, “Forget it. Why are you pursuing nuclear technology? Abandon it and save the country.”
“This is while Iran has never sought a bomb and there is no program to build one,” the nuclear chief pointed out.
Iranian and American delegations, led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, resumed nuclear talks in Muscat on February 6, months after the US-Israeli aggression of June 2025.
Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Al Busaidi was shuttling between the sides, with the talks being held indirectly as before.
The negotiations followed weeks of tensions as the United States deployed air and naval forces to the region and threatened to attack the Islamic Republic again. Iran insists it will not give up diplomacy but stands ready to repel any act of aggression.
