US-GCC statement sowing discord in region: Tehran

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The joint statement of the US-GCC Joint Workgroup is in line with the US policy that is as old as time, which involves sowing the seeds of discord among regional countries, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said on Thursday.

Kanaani rejected the contents of the statement that stemmed from the third session of the US-GCC Joint Workgroup on Irna, saying those parties repeating "boring accusations" in that statement as the United States itself is selling billions of arms to regional statements and supporting terrorist groups in the region.

The United States continuing full-scale support for the criminal acts of "the Zionist regime against the Palestinians and the devastating war against Yemen" is the sum up of the devastating US interventions in West Asia and the Gulf that have disturbed regional peace and stability, Kanaani said.

The United States and its allies in the Gulf accused Iran of having "destabilizing policies, including its support for terrorism and the use of advanced missiles, cyber weapons, and Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and their proliferation in the region and around the world."

Furthermore, the spokesperson stressed that the United States believed in and was committed to dialogue and diplomacy to resolve regional crises through political talks.

Meanwhile, according to Kanaani, Iranian is experiencing satisfactory and still growing relations with neighboring countries. He also hoped that the latter understood how the United States had profit-oriented hostile intentions in the region, which have long been paving the path toward sustainable peace, stability, and development in the region.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran continues progressing its peaceful nuclear program while cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its commitments under the nuclear-Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) protocol, quite constructively, and does not yield to any political pressure or demonstrative propaganda," he emphasized.

The US-GCC statement said the members "raised their grave concerns" about Iran's military, saying it was "deepening two-way cooperation with state and non-state actors."

"The United States and GCC member states further underlined that Iran’s nuclear advances as documented by the IAEA, chief among them the production of highly enriched uranium (HEU), have no credible civilian purpose and are gravely exacerbating regional and global tensions," the statement further claimed.

However, while the IAEA's eyes are solely on Iran, the latter has constantly warned that the Israeli advanced nuclear program poses a serious threat to international security and stability. Concurrently, Russia has repeatedly raised a red flag regarding the consequences if Ukraine, a prominent US ally, uses the "dirty bomb".

It is worth noting that Iran previously mentioned that IR-1 centrifuges at the Fordow plant were replaced by IR-6 advanced centrifuges that would speed up enrichment 10-fold and are approved under a law previously passed by the Iranian Parliament back in 2020 in response to the illegal unilateral sanctions imposed by the US on the country.

This comes shortly after the International Atomic Energy Agency claimed that its inspectors discovered a change to an interconnection between two clusters of centrifuges that differed significantly from what Iran had stated to the agency.

The alleged change was discovered by the IAEA on Jan. 21 at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, where inspectors are currently expediting inspections after Iran announced that it was drastically increasing enrichment.

The IAEA did not specify how the interconnection between the two cascades of IR-6 centrifuges had been altered in a confidential report to member states seen by Reuters, saying only that "they were interconnected in a way that was substantially different from the mode of operation declared by Iran (to the IAEA)."

In response to an IAEA anti-Iran resolution drafted and pushed by the US and EU, Iran announced in November that it initiated enriching uranium at the Fordow nuclear power plant at a 60% purity level.

The IAEA was notified by Tehran about the decision in a letter, stating that this is to convey a strong message after the board of the UN nuclear energy passed the politically-oriented resolution.