TEHRAN- In recent days numerous and sometimes contradictory news have been published about nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States. An American media outlet reported on indirect negotiations between Iranian and American diplomats in Oman, while an Israeli regime media outlet said that an agreement between Tehran and Washington was imminent. However, both Iranian and American sides have denied being close to an agreement.

Evidence and news indicate that there are movements between the two sides, but it is still unclear what the outcome will be. Ayatollah Khamenei explained the blueprint of Iran's nuclear policies and negotiations in his speech on Sunday.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution once again reiterated Tehran’s long-held position that Iran has no intention to build nuclear weapons or any kind of mass-killing weapons based on Islamic principles. The Leader said if Iran had intended to build nuclear weapons, the West could not have prevented it. This means that Iran neither wants to build atomic weapons nor is there any obstacle to it.

Of course, some Western media outlets distorted this point and wrote in their headlines that the West cannot prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. This means that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons!

Ayatollah Khamenei also mentioned several important points about nuclear negotiations and cooperation with the IAEA. The spirit and message of these points indicate that if nuclear negotiations have not yet yielded results, it is due to U.S. extortion and confusion rather than Iran's inflexibility or lack of cooperation.

Iran is willing to cooperate with the IAEA within a defined legal framework, and the unprecedented global monitoring of Iran's peaceful program is ongoing. However, when it comes to nuclear programs as an excuse, what can be done? A few years ago, a U.S. official involved in the Iranian nuclear case, who had also worked as an IAEA inspector for a while, claimed that Iran could never be confirmed to have no clandestine nuclear activities because firstly Iran is a very large country and cannot be monitored everywhere, and secondly even if we monitor all over Iran's vast territory, it is possible that Iran may carry out its nuclear activities in a third country like North Korea, which is not under surveillance. Yes! Iran has faced and still faces such excuses. Perhaps we should wait for the appearance of Jesus Christ and the divine confirmation of the peacefulness of Iran's nuclear program by that prophet!

Another important point emphasized in the statements of Ayatollah Khamenei was lack of trust in the promises of the negotiating party regarding the nuclear negotiations. Iran suffered heavy losses from the JCPOA and as an Iranian proverb says “a wise man does not fall into one hole twice”.

If an agreement is to be reached, as always, Iran's commitments are clear and unambiguous. So should be those of the other party. The delay and confusion of Americans have various reasons. One reason is that they mistakenly think time is on their side and they can take more and give less in the future. 20 years ago, they thought exactly the same way and were after completely dismantling Iran's peaceful nuclear program. At that time, Iran did not have more than a few hundred first-generation centrifuges. Time has proven their calculations wrong.

Mohammad Sarfi is Editor-in-Chief Tehran Times