During a commemoration marking the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, Supreme Leader Khamenei delivered a speech where he firmly pledged that Iran will not abandon its uranium enrichment. He stated, “If we have a hundred nuclear power plants but no enrichment capability, they are worthless…If we don’t enrich ourselves, we’ll have to extend a begging hand to America—and they will impose conditions.”
He added, “Who are you to decide whether Iran should enrich uranium or not? What business is it of yours?” In his speech, Khamenei also described “that “very few countries in the world” possess Iran’s full nuclear fuel cycle capability, and called the nuclear issue “a national matter and a symbol of independence.”