Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Wednesday that abandoning uranium enrichment is “100 percent against the country’s interests.” He also rejected a central U.S. demand in talks aimed at resolving a decade-long dispute over Iran’s nuclear ambitions centered around uranium.

According to reports, the U.S. proposal for a new nuclear deal was presented to Iran on Saturday by Oman, which is mediating talks between Iran and U.S. representatives, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.

Despite five rounds of talks, several hard-to-bridge issues still remain between the two countries. These include Iran’s insistence on maintaining uranium enrichment on its own soil and Tehran’s refusal to ship abroad its existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium (a material potentially usable in nuclear weapons).

Iranian Leader Makes Clarifications

The final decision on the matter lies with Iran’s Supreme Leader, Khamenei, who, while not directly addressing the possibility of war, made it clear that the U.S. proposal contradicts the nation’s belief in self-reliance and its guiding principle of “We Can.”

“Uranium enrichment is the key to our nuclear program, and the enemies have focused on this enrichment,” Khamenei said in a televised speech marking the anniversary of the death of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. “The proposal that the Americans have presented is 100 percent against our interests… The rude and arrogant leaders of America repeatedly demand that we should not have a nuclear program. Who are you to decide whether Iran should have enrichment?” the Iranian leader added.

Tehran maintains that it seeks to master nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and has long denied accusations by Western powers, which claim that Iran is working to develop nuclear weapons.