TEHRAN- Hossein Amir Abdollahian, Iran's foreign minister, has stated that Western countries engaging in negotiations with Iranian officials had urged Tehran to recognize Israel's Zionist regime in order to end their opposition to Tehran’s nuclear program.

Speaking to prominent Indian Muslim officials in India on Wednesday, Amir Abdollahian said Western states, including the United States, are aware that nuclear weapons have no place in Iran's religious beliefs, and that the country is not seeking such weapons, adding that they attempted to pressure Tehran into recognizing the Zionist regime in order to achieve their objectives, but failed.

According to the senior Iranian diplomat, it is his country's responsibility to work for the liberation of the Holy Quds from the Israeli occupation.

Amir Abdollahian also emphasized the need to identify schemes against Islamic beliefs.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei has stated numerous times that the Islamic Republic considers the pursuit and possession of nuclear weapons to be "a grave sin" from every logical, religious, and theoretical standpoint. Ayatollah Khamenei issued a fatwa on April 17, 2010, declaring nuclear weapons production, stockpiling, and use as haram (religiously banned).

"Iran is not after a nuclear bomb. Why would Iran want a nuclear bomb? Moreover, when an atomic bomb is detonated, it does not just kill enemies. Rather, it kills innocent people as well, and this goes against Islamic beliefs and the principles of the Islamic Republic of Iran. An atomic bomb does not discriminate between good and bad people, and it is not something that the Islamic Republic would use. The Islamic Republic is relying on something that is not affected by bombs, foreign invasions and other such things. Such things only strengthen what the Islamic republic is relying on. The Islamic republic is relying on the people," a section of the fatwa underlines.