'Keep dreaming': Khamenei says Iran's nuclear program survived US strikes

Speaking at his weekly press briefing, Baghaei said Iran had notified the United Nations that “with the end of Resolution 2231 on October 18, its provisions have officially terminated.”

Iran’s nuclear rights, he said, remain valid, including the right to enrich uranium and pursue nuclear research and development.

“The rights gained under this resolution, such as enrichment and the expansion of peaceful nuclear activities, continue to stand,” Baghaei added, describing the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as “a temporary and conditional understanding.”

Baghaei also accused the United States of violating international law by withdrawing from the deal in 2018 and criticized European governments for following Washington’s lead and failing to meet their own obligations.

His comments came as Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi formally informed the UN that Iran will no longer implement any of its remaining nuclear-deal commitments.

In a letter to the secretary-general and the president of the Security Council on Saturday, Araghchi said Resolution 2231 had expired “in full accordance with its explicit provisions” and that all restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program had lapsed, ending the Council’s oversight of Tehran’s activities.

"Iran had implemented the JCPOA in good faith and with full precision, while the United States had grossly violated international law by reimposing unilateral sanctions," Araghchi said.

Russia and China back Iran’s stance at UN

Iran’s position on the termination of Resolution 2231, Baghaei said, was supported by Russia and China, two permanent members of the Security Council that opposed efforts by the United Kingdom, France, and Germany to trigger the snapback of UN sanctions.

This outcome, he added, reflected “months of sustained diplomatic engagement,” particularly following talks in New York and the Cairo accord reached with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“Moscow and Beijing both made clear that the European powers lacked the legal standing to use the mechanism, since they had already violated the JCPOA.”

Contacts through intermediaries not formal negotiations

Addressing speculation about indirect communications with Washington, Baghaei said contacts through intermediaries “do not signify the start of official negotiations.”

While countries such as Egypt have sought to use their channels to ease tensions, he said, “real dialogue can only occur when both sides reach a shared understanding based on mutual respect.”

Recent discussions between Iran and Egypt centered on the Gaza conflict and the need for an immediate ceasefire, Baghaei said, adding that Tehran’s engagement with Cairo “has focused solely on humanitarian and regional stability issues.”

Joint letter with Russia and China sent to UN

Iran, Russia, and China reiterated their shared position in a joint letter sent to the UN Security Council on Sunday, emphasizing that Resolution 2231 had expired in accordance with its terms, the spokesman added.

“The letter reaffirmed that no valid decision had been adopted to reinstate the previous sanctions and that the legal confusion caused by the European powers’ action holds no bearing on Iran’s rights or its future nuclear activities.”

“The attempt to misuse international institutions for political ends” has created what he called a legal and procedural deadlock, for which “the responsibility lies entirely with the three European governments, not Iran.”

Rafael Grossi said information available to the agency indicates that most of the material is stored at known nuclear facilities in Isfahan and Fordow, and to a lesser extent in Natanz, though a small amount could have been taken elsewhere.

In the interview published on Saturday, he said inspectors would gain access to these sites only “when Iran perceives a national interest” in allowing it.

The IAEA estimates Iran possesses more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium — enough for several nuclear weapons if further refined.

Grossi added that the three facilities had been severely damaged in Israeli and US strikes in June.

While Tehran denies pursuing nuclear weapons, the UN nuclear watchdog's chief said concerns over its potential capabilities “have not been fully dispelled.”

He urged renewed diplomacy, saying, “Sitting together at one table would save us the danger of another round of bombardments and attacks.”

Israel and the United States attacked Iranian nuclear sites in a 12-day June war, setting back the nuclear program but leaving its fate unresolved.

Tehran has since declined to allow IAEA inspectors to resume their inspections.

Last month, foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran's inventory of highly enriched uranium is buried under rubble following US and Israeli strikes on the country's nuclear facilities.

“It started probably with Soleimani. He was a mastermind who did a lot of bad things,” Trump said in a Fox News interview, referring to the late Quds Force commander.

“He’s the father of the roadside bomb that would blow up and maim so many of our great soldiers,” he added.

Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad International Airport in January 2020 on Trump’s orders.

The US president said the turning point that paved the way for the Gaza peace earlier this month came in June when US B-2 bombers carried out what he called a “beautiful military operation” against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“They flew for 37 hours, went into Iran’s airspace, and bombed the hell out of it,” he said. “When we destroyed their nuclear capability, they no longer became the bully of the Middle East.”

He said the US operation, along with Israeli strikes on Iran, made possible what he described as peace beyond Gaza.

“We wouldn’t have been able to make the deal we just made, which is basically peace in the Middle East beyond Gaza,” Trump said.

The ceasefire mediated in early October by the United States, Egypt, Turkey and Qatar put an end to over two years of Israeli attacks on Gaza, which started in response to Hamas's October 7 attack.

It was a rare moment of honesty — and a metaphor for a deeper failure in Western journalism. For decades, many correspondents have mistaken access for understanding and permission for credibility.

This reporting perpetuates the illusion that a “moderate” or “reformist” faction within the clerical regime is always on the brink of pursuing a more friendly policy toward the West — if only Washington and its partners would be more conciliatory.

At the same time, this coverage conceals the essential truth that a younger, connected, and defiantly secular generation rejects religious dictatorship.

To report from Iran, Western journalists must operate under state supervision. Their “fixers” are often regime-approved minders who decide which families they can meet, which streets they can visit, and what stories they can tell. The price of defiance is expulsion. Most choose to stay, and so they comply.

The result is journalism that reports through the regime’s lens. Coverage mirrors Tehran’s narrative while ignoring its contradictions.

When Iran invited Western media to cover the recent 12-day war with Israel, many major outlets accepted. Yet none mentioned the most visible fact on Tehran’s streets: women walking unveiled in courageous defiance of the law and regime threats.

Instead, their dispatches focused narrowly on civilian casualties, using regime-selected witnesses and identical talking points. Access was preserved; truth was not.

Since 1979, Western coverage has lagged a decade behind Iran’s reality.

In the early years of the revolution, reporters portrayed a nation united behind Ayatollah Khomeini, ignoring the liberals, nationalists, and religious dissenters who opposed him.

Two decades later, President Mohammad Khatami was cast as proof that “reformers” were emerging inside the system. In fact, his 1997 victory was a bottom-up protest vote, not a top-down project of change.

Ever since, journalists have recycled the same script: “moderates” versus “hardliners.” They still describe every election as a “battle for Iran’s future,” though every candidate operates within red lines drawn by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The 2015 nuclear deal was touted as the triumph of moderation under President Hassan Rouhani — yet it was conceived and authorized by Khamenei himself.

While foreign correspondents chase factional drama, Iran’s people have transformed. A younger, connected, and defiantly secular generation has rejected clerical control.

The revolt of Iranian women — from the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising of 2022–23 to daily acts of unveiled defiance — represents the most sustained challenge to the Islamic Republic since its founding.

But these stories are rarely told. At their height, protests command the attention of Western journalists. When they abate, often because of bloody suppression, it is back to the old story about alleged “moderates.”

When Western correspondents appear on air from Tehran wearing the compulsory hijab, they explain it as “respect for local culture.” But there is nothing cultural about coercion. Millions of Iranian women are risking imprisonment to defy that law, while foreign journalists are complicit in its perpetuation.

There are exceptions. VICE News correspondent Isobel Yeung chose honesty over access in her 2023 documentary on post-Mahsa Amini Iran. She’s unlikely to receive another visa. Meanwhile, the same media that rail against limits on press briefings in Washington submit meekly to the censorship of a theocracy.

This is more than a journalistic sin; it’s a strategic failure. Policymakers rely on the press to gauge Iran’s internal dynamics. When the media misread the country, so do the governments that read them.

Washington and Europe have spent years betting on “moderates” who don’t exist, negotiating with powerless presidents, and failing to see the possibility that the Islamic Republic will collapse from within.

Ultimately, those who pay the price are Iranians themselves.

Jon Snow’s line — “They whistle, and we go” — should be engraved above every newsroom desk that covers Iran. It captures the moral inversion of access journalism: the more the regime whistles, the faster the press runs.

Iran today is not the country Western reporters still describe. It is a nation where millions quietly rebel, where women lead a moral revolution, and where a dictatorship survives because it guns down dissenters while outsiders echoing the Islamic Republic’s preferred narrative.

The choice for Western journalists is clear: keep obeying the whistle — or finally listen to the voices on the street.

Hajibabaei said Iran “firmly supports the legitimate resistance of the Palestinian people” and the creation of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

He urged Muslim unity against what he described as Israel’s “decades-long impunity for war crimes.”

Speaking at the 151st IPU Assembly -- which focuses on humanitarian norms and inclusive democracy -- Hajibabaei warned that any temporary ceasefire should not mean “forgetting justice or accountability.”

He added that global action was needed to prosecute those responsible for crimes in Gaza and said Islamic solidarity was key to achieving “a just and lasting peace for Palestine.”