TEHRAN: Iran accused Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday of trying to dictate US policy in negotiations, after he called for the complete dismantling of Tehran’s nuclear program and for the inclusion of its ballistic missile capabilities in any deal. “What is striking... is how brazenly Netanyahu is now dictating what President Trump can and cannot do in his diplomacy with Iran,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on X. On Sunday, Netanyahu said any real Iran-US deal would be one “which removes Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons” and “bring in the prevention of ballistic missiles”.

The remarks came a day after Iranian and US delegations met in Oman for a third round of high-level talks on Tehran’s nuclear program, with both sides reporting progress. US President Donald Trump sent a letter in March to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urging talks and warning of possible military action if Iran refused. Since he returned to office in January, Trump revived his “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign, mirroring his approach during his first term when he withdrew from a 2015 landmark nuclear deal with Iran.

The talks began on April 12, with Tehran insisting they should be solely focused on the nuclear issue and the lifting of sanctions. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has said the country’s military capabilities were off-limits in the discussions. Tehran’s regional influence and its missile capabilities, long criticized by Western governments, were among its “red lines” in the talks, the official IRNA news agency had reported. Tehran supports the “axis of resistance”, a network of militant groups opposed to Zionists, including Yemen’s Houthi rebels, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Shiite armed groups in Iraq.

“(Zionist) fantasy that it can dictate what Iran may or may not do is so detached from reality that it hardly merits a response,” Araghchi said on Monday. He noted that Iran was able to thwart “any attempt by malicious external actors to sabotage its foreign policy or dictate its course.” “We can only hope our US counterparts are equally steadfast,” he added. Western countries including the United States have long accused Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons—an allegation Tehran has consistently denied, insisting that its program is for peaceful civilian purposes.

Nuke program must go

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeated calls for Iran’s entire nuclear infrastructure to be dismantled, as Washington and Tehran engage in talks for a nuclear accord. The United States and Iran have so far held three rounds of indirect talks, mediated by Gulf state Oman, aimed at sealing a deal that would block Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon but also lift crippling economic sanctions imposed by Washington. After talks in Rome earlier this month, Oman said that the US and Iran were pursuing an accord that would see Tehran “completely free” of nuclear weapons and sanctions but “maintaining its ability to develop peaceful nuclear energy.”

Netanyahu said the only “good deal” would be one that removed “all of the infrastructure” akin to the 2003 agreement that Libya made with the West that saw it give up its nuclear, chemical, biological and missile programs. Zionist officials have long vowed to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, an assertion Netanyahu repeated. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Monday Tehran was confident it could thwart attempts to sabotage its foreign policy or dictate its course, adding that he hoped his US counterparts would be equally steadfast. “What is striking (...) is how brazenly Netanyahu is now dictating what President Trump can and cannot do in his diplomacy with Iran,” Araqchi wrote on X, before warning that any strike on Iran would be immediately reciprocated.

Zionist entity has not ruled out attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, despite President Donald Trump telling Netanyahu that the US was for now unwilling to support such an operation, Reuters reported on April 19, citing an official and two other sources familiar with the matter. Netanyahu, speaking late on Sunday in Jerusalem, said that he had told Trump that any nuclear agreement reached with Iran should also prevent Tehran from developing ballistic missiles.

An Iranian official told Reuters this month that Tehran saw its missile program as the main sticking point in US talks. Iran in April 2024 and again in October 2024 attacked Zionist entity with drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles after Zionists had killed Iranian generals and officials from Iranian proxies. “We are in close contact with the United States. But I said, one way or the other, Iran will not have nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said at a conference organized by the Jewish News Syndicate, referring to a conversation he had with Trump. - Agencies