Will Iran give up its uranium?: Trump says yes, Tehran says no
President Donald Trump said Friday the United States will work with Iran to recover its enriched uranium stockpile and bring it back to America at a “nice leisurely pace,” a claim Tehran immediately rejected.“We’re going to get it together. We’re going to go in with Iran, at a nice leisurely pace, and go down and start excavating with big machinery,” Trump told Reuters in a phone interview. “We’ll bring it back to the United States.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei dismissed the idea. “Iran’s enriched uranium is not going to be transferred anywhere; transferring uranium to the United States has not been an option for us,” he told state TV.Trump referred to Iran’s enriched uranium as “nuclear dust” and said it would be retrieved “very soon.” He added that more talks would take place “probably over the weekend” and that he “might” travel to Islamabad once a deal is finalised.The US will maintain its naval blockade against Iran until an agreement is reached, Trump said.
$20 billion cash-for-uranium proposal reported, Trump denies
Axios reported Friday, citing two US officials and two sources briefed on the talks, that the US had proposed releasing $20 billion in frozen Iranian funds in return for Tehran giving up its enriched uranium stockpile. The report said the US was earlier ready to release $6 billion for humanitarian supplies, while Iran had demanded $27 billion.Trump denied the report. “No money is changing hands,” he wrote on Truth Social after the Axios story was published.A White House spokesperson said the administration would “not negotiate through the press” and that anonymous sources “have no idea what they are talking about.”
Significant gaps remain, Iran says
Trump told reporters Thursday that Iran had agreed to “a very, very powerful statement… that they will not have nuclear weapons.”However, a senior Iranian official told Reuters that “significant differences remain” between the two sides.Pakistan is mediating the negotiations, with behind-the-scenes support from Egypt and Turkey. Another round of talks is expected in Islamabad as early as Sunday, according to a source familiar with the mediation efforts.
Military experts warn of risks
Military experts told the BBC that retrieving Iran’s enriched uranium, much of it believed stored in underground tunnels at Isfahan that were sealed after US-Israeli strikes, would be “one of the most complicated special operations in history.”“You’ve got basically a half ton of what’s effectively weapons-grade uranium that you’ve got to extricate,” one expert said. “And there are a million things that could go wrong.”Iran possesses approximately 450kg of uranium enriched to 60% purity — a short technical step from weapons-grade material at 90% — according to US officials. Iran also has roughly 1,000kg of uranium enriched to 20% and 8,500kg enriched to 3.6%.
Tehran says its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful civilian use
Trump has said a primary reason for the war was to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has consistently defended the country’s nuclear and missile capabilities as essential for national defence.“Iran’s attachment to uranium enrichment is deeply ideological,” Prof. Ali Ansari of St Andrews University told the Guardian. “It is almost an obsession with national prestige.”
