Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reaffirmed that “sanctions must be removed first. Once we are certain that has been done, we will carry out our commitments. He further asserted that nuclear talks “should not reach a point where the other signatories wish to keep drawing it out, because that would be detrimental to the country”. The same day, referring to the 11 April Natanz sabotage incident, President Rouhani maintained: “you want us to attend the negotiations with empty hands, but we attend the negotiations with full hands… we do 60 per cent enrichment, but at the same time, our activities will be only and definitely peaceful and will continue to be under the supervision of the IAEA”. “We are not in a hurry for negotiations and this depends on the other side”, he added. “As soon as the other side returns to its obligations, we will return to ours as well, provided that we see in practice that the fulfilment of these obligations is real… Verifying this will not take much time”.