Iran's Khamenei spurns 'arrogant' US nuclear-deal proposal

Arsalan Shahla, Bloomberg News on Jun 4, 2025

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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei criticized a U.S. proposal for a nuclear deal and called American officials “arrogant” for expecting the Islamic Republic to cease uranium enrichment.

Iran and the U.S. have been engaged in negotiations since April in a bid to end a tense, years-long standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program and have so far had five rounds of talks mediated by Oman.

Addressing crowds of worshipers in the capital Tehran, Khamenei said the latest U.S. plan presented to Iranian diplomats was “100% against our ‘can do’” spirit.

“The arrogant U.S. leaders keep repeating this demand in various ways. They oppose Iran’s progress,” he said in the televised speech, adding that Iran’s nuclear sector was a “foundation industry” that would be rendered “useless” without uranium enrichment.

His comments reinforce Iran’s position that it won’t bow to U.S. demands that Tehran entirely give up its ability to enrich uranium on its own soil. He didn’t give any details about what was in the Trump-administration proposal and while he was heavily critical of the U.S., Khamenei didn’t spurn the negotiating process itself or the ultimate goal of brokering a deal.

The details of the U.S. proposal haven’t been made public. Axios reported on Monday that it allowed some limited, low-level uranium enrichment for a set period of time. On Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Washington’s ideas had “many ambiguities” and lacked clarity.

“The U.S.’s main demand is that Iran shouldn’t have any nuclear industry at all, to be dependent on them in dozens of important fields, and have no nuclear industry of our own,” Khamenei said.