{"id":170876,"date":"2026-06-21T18:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T18:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/170876\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T18:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T18:56:09","slug":"tehran-pushes-defiant-line-on-cash-uranium-as-vance-suggests-us-and-iran-could-transform-relationship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/170876\/","title":{"rendered":"Tehran pushes defiant line on cash, uranium as Vance suggests US and Iran could transform relationship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vice President JD Vance floated the possibility Sunday that the US and Iran could \u201ctransform\u201d their relationship<\/a> through the negotiations in Switzerland\u2014 but officials in Tehran made clear they were not there to make friends, and instead were trying to use the negotiations to pry billions out of the US and its allies.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s president said Sunday that the Islamic Republic will not give up its right to enriched uranium<\/a> as part of the peace deal with the US \u2014 whiling noting that a deal could save the country\u2019s economy by unlocking sanctioned cash. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei\u2019s main representative to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps suggested that Iran would participate in the negotiations, but were not worried if they failed. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur primary option is jihad, whether on the battlefield or in the streets. We are not worried about the negotiations failing. We have not gone into negotiations out of desperation or helplessness,\u201d Abdollah Haji Sadeghi told Al-Jazeera<\/a>. <\/p>\n

As far as the fate of Iran\u2019s nuclear material, President Masoud Pezeshkian<\/a> said his nation was willing to provide assurances, yet again, that Iran would not develop nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

But, he said that enriched uranium is still needed to develop power plants in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the United States demands is that Iran not build an atomic bomb. This is nothing new, and we can also state in writing that we have no intention of building a bomb,\u201d Pezeshkian said in a statement. <\/p>\n

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran would not give up its right to enriched uranium as part of the peace deal with the US. Foad Ashtari\/SOPA Images\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The Islamic republic maintains it has a right to develop nuclear power plants while claiming it would not develop atomic weapons. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, we will not relinquish our right to enrichment, and the other side will have no choice but to accept this right,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

Iran currently possesses nearly 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium, which is believed to be buried underground<\/a> following joint US-Israeli airstrikes last year. <\/p>\n

The atomic material, enriched at 60%, would only be a few technical steps from reaching the 90% enrichment point for weapons-grade uranium. <\/p>\n

Iran has long denied claims that it would use the uranium to develop nuclear weapons. President Trump has made keeping nuclear weapons from Iran the primary goal of his war.<\/p>\n

President Trump has said the US will never allow Iran to acquire or develop nuclear weapons. Jeanne Accorsini\/SIPA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Pezeshkian, however, touted an apparent change in Trump\u2019s outlook on the war, including wording the signed memorandum of understanding<\/a> that claimed the US would no longer take control of Iran\u2019s uranium.<\/p>\n

Instead, the US would work with the Islamic republic to help develop nuclear power plants without weapons-grade material. The highly enriched uranium would also have been de-graded under the supervision of the United Nations\u2019 watchdog group. <\/p>\n

Pezeshkian also noted that the terms of the peace deal would allow cash to quickly flow into the Islamic republic to help its staggered economy amid sky-high inflation and the plummeting value of its rial currency. <\/p>\n

Iran had uranium enriched at 60% prior to last year\u2019s airstrikes, with the atomic material believed to be buried underground. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cIn just these few days, and until the day before yesterday, we exported nearly 16 million barrels of oil, whereas during the 50-day siege period, it was not possible to move even one barrel of oil,\u201d the Iranian president claimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this short period, we were able to recover part of our credits and resources and carry out numerous actions,\u201d he said of the immediate sanctions relief. <\/p>\n

The US had agreed to provide sweeping sanctions relief and unfrozen funds totaling some $300 billion for Iran\u2019s reconstruction, with some of the financial aid already released and another $6 billion from Qatar on its way, Pezeshkian added. <\/p>\n

The Trump administration has maintained that Iran will not get all the funds, and that sanctions would be slapped on immediately, if it failed to keep up with its end of the deal. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vice President JD Vance floated the possibility Sunday that the US and Iran could \u201ctransform\u201d their relationship through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[34,269,69,5556,36,82],"class_list":["post-170876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tehran","tag-iran","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-tehran","tag-uranium","tag-war","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116789626931772871","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}