Tehran, Feb 18: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the country is looking for “peaceful” use of nuclear energy, and “not for nuclear weapons”.
“The reason for the enemy’s emphasis on the Iranian nuclear issue and the imposition of oppressive sanctions, despite their knowledge of our peaceful use (of nuclear energy), is to prevent the country’s scientific progress aimed to meet Iran’s future needs,” Xinhua news agency quoted the Supreme Leader as saying on Thursday.
Khamenei also said that the enemy has targeted the public opinion, especially the minds of the Iranian youth, by spending billions of dollars and with various plans in their think tanks to discourage them from the ideals of the Islamic revolution.
He described “economic pressure” and “media operations” as two main apparatus of the “arrogance” to separate people from the Islamic establishment, saying that spreading “lies and slandering the basis of the revolution and the institutions that help the progress of the revolution are the methods used in their media operations”.
Meanwhile, Khamenei stressed the need to deal with economic and sanction pressures by relying on internal capacities in the country.