US Stresses Importance of Ayatollah Khamenei’s Fatwa against N. Weapons

 (FNA)- A senior US official appreciated the Fatwa (religious decree) issued by Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei against the production and use of nuclear weapons as a highly important move.

"We appreciate ... that Iranˈs Supreme Leader has issued a Fatwa saying in fact it was not to be that Iran have a nuclear weapon. We appreciate that within the Iranian system this has a tremendous meaning and we respect that the Supreme Leader has said that," the senior US official was quoted as saying by the Islamic republic news agency in Vienna on Wednesday.

The US official, meantime, said that Washington also needs concrete actions by Iran that are verifiable and monitored and can be seen.

On February 22, 2012, Ayatollah Khamenei said the Islamic Republic considers the pursuit and possession of nuclear weapons "a grave sin" from every logical, religious and theoretical standpoint.

Former Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said last year that Ayatollah Khamenei's fatwa is binding for Iran, adding, "There is nothing more important in defining the framework for our nuclear activities than the Leader's fatwa."