Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday Tehran does not seek war with the United States despite mounting tensions between the two arch-enemies over Iranian nuclear capabilities and its missile program.
In comments to senior officials carried by state television, Ayatollah Khamenei also reiterated that the Islamic Republic would not negotiate with the United States on another nuclear deal.
“There won’t be any war. The Iranian nation has chosen the path of resistance,” Ayatollah Khamenei was cited as saying by the state media. “We don’t seek a war, and they don’t either. They know it’s not in their interests.”
President Donald Trump withdrew the United States a year ago from a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and global powers under which Tehran curbed its uranium enrichment capacity, a potential pathway to a nuclear bomb, and won sanctions relief in return.
Iran has rejected the allegation and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Tuesday that “extremist individuals” in the U.S. government were pursuing dangerous policies, stoking a war of words with Washington over sanctions.