Companies in the United States were invited to partake in lucrative business opportunities involving Iran’s plan to erect over 19 additional nuclear reactors, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Monday.
“Iran’s long-term plan is to build at least 19 new nuclear reactors; this means tens of billions of dollars in potential contracts are available” for US firms Araghchi said.
“American companies could explore the trillion-dollar opportunity that the Iranian economy presented,” including companies that could “help generate clean electricity from non-hydrocarbon sources,” he added.
Further, Araghchi said that “the Iranian market alone was large enough to revive America’s faltering nuclear industry.”
These statements were supposed to be delivered by the Iranian foreign minister as part of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank’s 2025 Nuclear Policy Conference.
However, according to the organizers, a last-minute request by Araghchi’s team to change the format of the session in a way that would have “severely curtailed” the ability of both audience members and the moderator to question the Iranian official’s remarks led to the eventual cancellation of his address.
The official Iranian delegation to the UN blamed the organizers, tweeting on its X/Twitter account that “the cancellation followed the organizer’s decision to alter the format of the keynote speaker into a debate.”
Araghchi then proceeded to tweet on his own X account: “I am accustomed to tough questions from journalists and ordinary concerned citizens alike. But turning my keynote address into an open Q&A would either have turned the event into a public negotiation, which I am not willing to accept, or be unsatisfactory for an audience probably looking for details on where the talks might go.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will not be speaking at the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference: pic.twitter.com/YretnkrIaM
— Carnegie Endowment (@CarnegieEndow) April 21, 2025
He blamed his intended host for being “neither cognizant nor considerate of these sensitive dynamics.”
Despite this, the Iranian foreign minister decided to make his scheduled speech public in written form, publishing it both on social media and through government news agencies.
Araghchi slammed int'l community in speech
In addition to attempts at tempting the US administration and public with “trillions” by investing in Iran’s energy sector and nuclear program, Araghchi slammed the international community for “ignoring Israel’s nuclear arsenal and refusing to join the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty or accept IAEA monitoring.”
He also made an appeal to what he called shared Iranian American history, saying that Iran had joined US president Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program in the 1950s.
Moreover, Araghchi called for an end to any threatening language that could harm Iran’s honor, and said that Tehran was the only country to “officially oppose nuclear weapons on religious grounds.”
Araghchi had also planned to address what he deemed the mischaracterization of Iran’s nuclear program, which he said had been misunderstood due to “politically motivated narratives.”
He expressed cautious optimism in the undelivered speech about changing the “toxic dynamic” surrounding the issue and emphasized Iran’s willingness to engage with Washington based on “mutual respect and equal standing.”
The speech’s cancellation comes at a sensitive time, as US-Iran nuclear talks have recently gained momentum following rigorous meetings in Rome, which, according to US President Donald Trump, were progressing well.
These talks have been held much to the dismay of people who oppose the regime.
In recent days, a popular online campaign using the hashtag #NoDealWithKhamenei was launched, while in Iran itself, several murals were sprayed with graffiti reading: “President Trump, don’t sell us out.”
The Oman-brokered negotiations between Araghchi and Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, were described as fruitful, with Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Al-Busaidi recently saying that “even the unlikely is possible” as the discussions advance.