Tehran: Iran’s Supreme Leader said on Tuesday the western global powers will not be able to bring Iran to its knees in nuclear talks, his website reported.

Speaking to a group of clerics, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday said, “On the nuclear issue, the United States and European colonialist countries gathered and applied their entire efforts to bring the Islamic Republic to its knees but they could not and they will not.”

These are the first remarks by Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, since Iran and the major global powers agreed on Monday to decide by March 1 what needs to be done and on what kind of schedule. A final agreement is meant to follow four months later.

Khamenei has so far backed the nuclear negotiations. His reference to the future indicates that the extension of the talks would have his approval as well.

Earlier on Monday and in a nationwide broadcast, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani told his nation that it “has achieved a significant victory” and “negotiations will lead to a deal, sooner or later.”

Rouhani also said many gaps in the talks “have been eliminated.”

But he also vowed that Iran will not relinquish its right to nuclear capability.

“Our nuclear rights should be admitted by the world,” Rouhani said. “We will continue the talks.”

The United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany, have engaged in intensive negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme. Tehran has denied its nuclear research has any sort of military dimension, saying it is focused on peaceful uses like power generation and medical treatments.

On Twitter, Khamenei appeared to accuse the West of meddling in Middle Eastern turmoil, saying Islamist militants had turned Arab Spring uprisings into Muslim infighting “in line with arrogants’ goals”.

The message referred to “takfiri” militants — those who proclaim followers of other sects of Islam to be infidels and therefore legitimate targets of holy war.

Another tweet from the same account said: “US-led coalition against [Daesh] is a blatant lie. By the means of [Daesh], US wants to keep the war among Muslims alive”.

The United States and its allies have launched air strikes on the Islamist fighters who have seized territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.