TEHRAN, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Iran will under no circumstances abandon its "hard-earned" right to uranium enrichment for peaceful purposes, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said Friday on the social media platform X.
Rejecting a Thursday report by the U.S.-based news website Axios, which claimed that Washington had presented Tehran with a proposal for a nuclear deal during the fourth round of indirect negotiations in the Omani capital, Muscat, on Sunday, Araghchi said Iran had not received any direct or indirect written proposal from the United States.
"In the meantime, the messaging we -- and the world -- continue to receive is confusing and contradictory," he said.
"There is no scenario in which Iran abandons its hard-earned right to enrichment for peaceful purposes -- a right afforded to all other NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) signatories as well," he added.
Iran remains "determined and straightforward: respect our rights and terminate your sanctions, and we have a deal," Araghchi said, adding that Iran always welcomes dialogue based on mutual respect and consistently rejects "any diktat."
The Iranian and U.S. delegations held the first and third rounds of their indirect talks on Tehran's nuclear program and the lifting of U.S. sanctions in Muscat on April 12 and 26, while the second round took place in Rome on April 19. ■
