TEHRAN - Mohammad Eslami, the director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), says the Islamic Republic has made outstanding progress in the nuclear industry despite extreme pressure from its foes.

The enemies have always maintained a consistent strategy, exerting pressure on Iran from outside and to break the country from inside, Eslami told a gathering of university students in Mashhad on Friday.

“In other words, they have consistently pursued a ‘policy of pressure from outside and breaking from within’, making use of all hardware and software tools at their disposal. However, our progress has been extraordinary,” he added, Press TV reported.

However, Eslami added, the country's progress in “military industries, nuclear sector, space industry, and other fields has been extraordinary and miraculous.” 
He noted that arrogant countries seek to dominate Iran because it holds the second largest oil and gas reserves in the world, coupled with vast mineral reserves.

The nuclear chief reiterated Tehran’s long-held policy that the Islamic Republic has no intention to develop nuclear bombs and has held negotiations with different sides over the past 25 years, which resulted in the conclusion of the 2015 nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“But they couldn't even tolerate the JCPOA," he said, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump's unilateral withdrawal from the deal in his first term in 2018 and reimposing sanctions and adding new ones."Sanctions are their main means to stop the country and force it into submission,” Eslami pointed out.

The JCPOA was a multilateral international agreement signed between Iran and five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany in 2015. Under the deal, which came into force in January 2016, Iran had accepted, in good faith, certain limits on its nuclear program in exchange for the termination of sanctions.

However, Trump pulled Washington out of the agreement endorsed by the UN Security Council, imposed severe economic sanctions against Tehran while Iran was adhering to the terms of the agreement, and even continued to do so for a year after the U.S. withdrawal.