STORY: Iran condemns U.S. official's threat of attacking nuclear facilities
SHOOTING TIME: Jan. 6, 2025
DATELINE: Jan. 7, 2025
LENGTH: 00:00:41
LOCATION: Tehran
CATEGORY: POLITICS

SHOTLIST:
1. various of the press conference

STORYLINE:

Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei on Monday condemned recent remarks by a White House official about the possibility of the United States hitting Iranian nuclear facilities, calling them "a threat against international peace and security."
   
He made the remarks at a weekly press conference in Tehran while reacting to a report published by Axios on Thursday, which revealed that U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had presented U.S. President Joe Biden with options for a potential U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, should the Iranians move towards a nuclear weapon before Jan. 20, 2025.
   
Baghaei said Sullivan's remarks were threats against another country's "peaceful" nuclear facilities.
   
He said that Iran and its people would act decisively and use all available tools to defend their national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and dignity.
   
Iran maintains that its nuclear activities are peaceful and mainly aimed at power generation and the production of radiopharmaceuticals.
   
The country signed a nuclear deal with world powers in July 2015, agreeing to put some curbs on its nuclear program in return for the removal of sanctions on the country. The United States, however, pulled out of the deal in May 2018 and reimposed its unilateral sanctions on Tehran, prompting the latter to drop some of its nuclear commitments under the deal.
   
The talks on the revival of the deal began in April 2021 in Vienna, Austria. Despite several rounds of talks, no significant breakthrough has been achieved since the end of the last round in August 2022.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Tehran.
(XHTV)