Leader says U.S. nuke accusations wrong
Iran ? Iran’s supreme leader said Sunday that U.S. officials know they are wrongly accusing Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
In Iran’s first official reaction to the U.S. decision to scrap a European missile intercept system to defend against threats from Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed President Barack Obama’s administration is following the same policies as its predecessor.
“The U.S. officials who talk about Iranian missiles and their danger while saying Iran intends to build a nuclear bomb, they know these words are wrong,” Khamenei said in remarks broadcast on state-run radio. “Despite its apparent friendly messages and words” the Obama administration is pursuing the same policy of Iran-phobia, he said.
The U.S. administration has invited Iran to start a dialogue on its nuclear program and gave a vague September deadline for Tehran to take up the offer. The U.S. and five other world powers accepted an offer from Iran earlier this month to hold “comprehensive, all-encompassing and constructive” talks on a range of security issues, including global nuclear disarmament.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana will meet Iran’s nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili on Oct. 1 for talks on Iran’s nuclear program.