(SeaPRwire) –   According to the Times of Israel, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated during a Wednesday state visit to China that Iran has an “inalienable” right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes.

As per the Times of Israel, Lavrov said at a Tuesday press conference following a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping: “The right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes is an inalienable right of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Access to such uranium has been a firm red line for U.S. President Donald Trump in ongoing peace negotiations with Iran.

In an April 8 post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “There will be no enrichment of Uranium,” adding that the U.S. would work with Iran to locate all remaining nuclear materials in the country to ensure the Islamic Republic has no access to any uranium.

Vice President JD Vance, who led the U.S. delegation in Saturday talks with Iranian officials in Islamabad, Pakistan, doubled down on that red line.

On Monday, Vance told Brett Baier: “The enriched uranium the Iranians currently possess—we have said we want that to leave their country, and we would like to take possession of it.”

“The president doesn’t want the next president or the one after that to worry about this program, so we want to get that material completely out of the country so the United States has control over it.

Despite the U.S.’s hardline stance, Russia’s top diplomat appeared to openly defy the U.S. demand, speaking strongly against what he viewed as American global control.

“Neither China nor Russia, nor most countries around the world, can accept this approach,” Lavrov said in remarks posted on a Russian state website.

According to Vance, peace talks with Iran have stalled because of Iran’s refusal to fully give up its nuclear program. Nuclear experts praised this decision.

“The U.S. team was wise to walk away once it became clear the Iranians would not agree to Washington’s core nuclear demands. Tehran maintaining enriched uranium stocks and enrichment capabilities gives it a pathway to nuclear weapons, plain and simple,” Andrea Stricker, deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ nonproliferation program, told Digital.

Digital contacted the U.S. State Department and the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

Digital’s Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this report.