2025 will be ‘important year’ for Iran’s nuclear program says Iranian foreign minister
“2025 will be an important year regarding Iran’s nuclear issue,” commented Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi in a press conference in Beijing on Saturday, according to a report in the Times of Israel.
The possibility of Israel striking Iranian nuclear facilities, and the U.S. government backing such strikes, has long been a matter of international concern, especially as many believe that such an attack could ignite a world war.
American and Israeli leaders have promised for years to prevent Iran from developing or acquiring nuclear weapons.
When President-elect Donald Trump was recently asked if he would support Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, or would direct the U.S. military to conduct such strikes, Trump refused to answer.
“Am I gonna do preemptive strikes? Why would I say that?” Trump said, adding that it is “not something that I would ever answer.”
While Iranian leaders publicly claim the nuclear program is to be used only for “peaceful purposes” and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa (a formal Islamic legal ruling) condemning the development of nuclear weapons in the 1990s, Iran was discovered to have a nuclear weapons program, which was ended in 2003.
A 2024 report from Iran's Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.”
However, it also noted that Iran has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce one, if it so chooses,” and “has continued to increase its stockpiles of 20-percent and 60-percent enriched uranium, manufacture and operate an increasing number of advanced centrifuges, and publicly discuss the utility of nuclear weapons.”
Despite claims from Iran that its nuclear program is peaceful, a senior advisor to Khamenei recently indicated that the fatwa against nuclear weapons could be changed.
Iran does “not possess nuclear weapons, and there is a fatwa from the leader regarding this matter,” Khazari said. “But what should you do if the enemy threatens you? You will inevitably have to make changes to your doctrine.”
The All Israel News Staff is a team of journalists in Israel.
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