Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Wednesday that abandoning uranium enrichment was “100 percent” against Tehran’s interests, effectively rejecting a key U.S. demand in weeks of tense negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran’s supreme leader criticized an initial proposal from the United States in negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program.

A nuclear industry without enrichment capabilities is useless because we would then be dependent on others to obtain fuel for our power plants,’ Iranian supreme leader says