Iran Says It Won't Exit Nuclear Pact Despite Sanctions Snapback

2025-09-26 07:00:38

(MENAFN- Live Mint) (Bloomberg) -- Iran will remain part of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, the country's president said, despite the looming threat of renewed UN sanctions and a domestic push by some lawmakers to adopt a more aggressive posture.

“We do not have the intention to leave the NPT,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told reporters at a hotel in midtown New York on Friday.

The president's words marked a shift in tone from July, when a lead Iranian negotiator said they had not ruled out leaving the agreement.

After European powers moved to reimpose nuclear sanctions on Iran that had been lifted as part of a 2015 nuclear deal with the US and other nations, diplomats feared that Tehran would withdraw from the landmark international agreement aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

Pezeshkian's assurance came on the same day - and at the same hour - that the UN Security Council was voting to reimpose broad sanctions on Tehran. UN leaders rejected a bid to extend the deadline for sanctions to snap back into place, meaning that penalties that had been lifted as part of the 2015 accord will go into effect on Saturday night New York time.

Pezeshkian added that the decision to remain in the agreement could not be swayed by other countries, in response to a question about the influence of China and Russia, who have been supporting Tehran and advocated on its behalf at the UN.

Iran has for years denied its nuclear program is for military purposes. However, even without leaving the NPT, the country's leadership is facing pressure from within Iran to change its stated objectives.

On Sunday, Iran's parliament will debate a letter by its members calling for a change in the country's stated policy of not pursuing nuclear weapons, raising the stakes in the diplomatic showdown over Tehran's atomic work.

--With assistance from Patrick Sykes.

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