Iranian president pledges to rebuild nuclear programme

 Tehran aims to rebuild the nuclear facilities damaged by attacks by US and Israeli forces in June, President Masoud Pezeshkian has indicated, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Sunday.

"The government stands with all its powers behind the necessary competence to continue the nuclear reconstruction," Pezeshkian said according to the agency, which is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Pezeshkian stressed that Tehran was not pursuing a nuclear weapons programme, but wanted to use nuclear energy for civil purposes. He described allegations from the West in this regard as "a lie" aimed at blocking Iran's scientific progress.

Israel regards Tehran's nuclear programme as an existential threat and waged a 12-day war against Iran in June to destroy it. US and Israeli forces bombed the installations, with US President Donald Trump claiming that they had been destroyed, while Tehran spoke of severe damage.

As Tehran has ceased all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), no information on the destruction or the reconstruction work from external sources is available.

Iran's leaders have repeatedly said that building a nuclear weapon is banned in the country on religious grounds, but fears remain that Tehran could build a nuclear weapon using its stocks of highly enriched uranium.

Tehran committed to limiting its nuclear programme under a 2015 deal with Western countries, but relaunched uranium enrichment after the United States withdrew from the agreement in 2018 during the first Trump administration.

UN sanctions on Iran were reimposed at the initiative of France, Germany and the United Kingdom under the "snapback" mechanism in late September this year.