Nuclear deal doesn’t signal Tehran’s openness to U.S. influence: Khamenei

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Monday his country wouldn’t allow the nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers to become an avenue for the U.S. to interfere with the political, economic and cultural life of the Islamic Republic.

“Their intention, in their imagination, was to find a way to infiltrate our country through this agreement,” Khamenei said, adding that Iran would “confront this infiltration with full power, which is thankfully high today.”

The comments, published on Khamenei’s official website, reflect the unease of ultraconservative voices inside Iran’s political and clerical establishment with the deal and the leading role of the U.S. in negotiating it. The U.S. was a close ally of the shah of Iran, whose overthrow in 1979 led to the founding of the Islamic Republic.

In the brief remarks attributed to him, Khamenei said the fate of the accord, signed last month in Vienna, was uncertain. “It isn’t clear whether it will be approved here, and it isn’t clear whether it will be approved there,” he said.

Source: MarketWatch