Stalemate on Iran nuclear talks

The UN’s nuclear watchdog has ended its latest mission to Iran after talks on Tehran’s suspected secret atomic weapons research failed, a setback likely to increase the risk of confrontation with the West.

In a defiant response, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran’s nuclear policies would not change despite mounting international pressure against what the West says are Iran’s plans to obtain nuclear bombs.

“With God’s help, and without paying attention to propaganda, Iran’s nuclear course should continue firmly and seriously,” he said. “Pressures, sanctions and assassinations will bear no fruit.”

Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed over the past two years in bomb attacks that Tehran has blamed on Israel.

The collapse of the talks came as Iran seems increasingly isolated, with experts seeing the Islamic republic’s defiance in response to sanctions against its oil industry and financial institutions as evidence it is in no mood to compromise with the West.