{"id":23458,"date":"2025-04-16T01:12:19","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T01:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/23458\/"},"modified":"2025-04-16T01:12:19","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T01:12:19","slug":"iran-must-stop-and-eliminate-nuclear-enrichment-says-us-envoy-witkoff-nuclear-energy-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/23458\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran \u2018must stop and eliminate\u2019 nuclear enrichment, says US envoy Witkoff | Nuclear Energy News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington, DC \u2013<\/strong> United States special envoy Steve Witkoff has said that Tehran \u201cmust stop and eliminate\u201d its nuclear enrichment programme<\/a> to reach a deal with Washington, seemingly raising the bar of US demands ahead of another round of talks with Iranian officials.<\/p>\n

Witkoff\u2019s remarks on Tuesday appear to contradict his suggestion a day earlier that the US would be satisfied with Iran enriching uranium at a low level to produce energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny final arrangement must set a framework for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East \u2013 meaning that Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program,\u201d Witkoff said in a statement on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is imperative for the world that we create a tough, fair deal that will endure, and that is what President Trump has asked me to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Witkoff\u2019s official title is special envoy to the Middle East, but US President Donald Trump has given him several high-stakes responsibilities beyond the region, including spearheading talks with Russia<\/a> as well as Iran.<\/p>\n

The State Department echoed Witkoff\u2019s latest statement about the Iran negotiations later on Tuesday, explaining that the US seeks\u00a0to \u201celiminate\u201d Iran\u2019s uranium enrichment.<\/p>\n

Witkoff had been part of a round of negotiations with Iranian officials and was in direct contact with Iran\u2019s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Oman on Saturday. Further talks are scheduled for April 19.<\/p>\n

\u2018They do not need to enrich past 3.67 percent\u2019<\/p>\n

Speaking to Fox News on Monday, Witkoff suggested that the US wants Iran to cap its uranium enrichment, a process of changing the atomic composition of uranium to produce nuclear fuel. When enriched at 90 percent, uranium can be used for weapons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey do not need to enrich past 3.67 percent,\u201d Witkoff said. \u201cIn some circumstances, they\u2019re at 60 percent. In other circumstances, 20 percent. That cannot be. And you do not need to run \u2014 as they claim \u2014 a civil nuclear programme where you\u2019re enriching past 3.67 percent, so this is going to be much about verification on the enrichment programme.\u201d<\/p>\n

That assertion garnered criticism from conservative hawks who have been calling for abolishing the Iranian enrichment<\/a> programme altogether.<\/p>\n

Tehran and Washington have gone through talks and tensions over the nuclear programme for decades. Successive US administrations have said that preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon was a top foreign policy priority.<\/p>\n

In 2015, the US was a key party in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a deal that saw Iran scale back its uranium enrichment to 3.67 percent in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions against its economy.<\/p>\n

The US administration of then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, hailed that deal as a means of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But Trump, a Republican, nixed the deal in 2018 during his first term.<\/p>\n

Since then, the US has been piling sanctions on Iran, and Tehran has escalated its nuclear programme in response. After returning to the White House for a second term this year, Trump re-launched his so-called maximum pressure<\/a> campaign against Iran, with the aim of choking off Iranian oil exports, particularly to China.<\/p>\n

During his interview with Fox, Witkoff implied that the Trump administration is seeking concessions from Iran beyond the JCPOA, particularly over its missile programme.<\/p>\n

He said Washington is seeking \u201cverification on weaponisation\u201d from Iran, including \u201cthe type of missiles that they have stockpiled there\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, his statement on Tuesday seems to indicate the US would like to see all uranium enrichment in Iran cease.<\/p>\n

While Iranian officials have been saying for decades that the country is not seeking a nuclear bomb, they have also stressed that their country has a right to use and create nuclear energy.<\/p>\n

Tensions between the two countries have been particularly high over the last month.<\/p>\n

In mid-March, Trump threatened to retaliate<\/a> against Iran should one of its regional allies, the Houthi group in Yemen, continue its attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!\u201d Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social.<\/p>\n

Trump also indicated US could consider military action if the current round of nuclear talks falls through. \u201cIf the talks aren\u2019t successful with Iran, I think Iran is going to be in great danger,\u201d he said last week.<\/p>\n

Still, the US president has also stressed that he prefers a diplomatic deal to ensure that Tehran never acquires a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n

That was a position his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, reiterated on Tuesday, saying Trump \u201cemphasized the need for Iran to end its nuclear programme through negotiations\u201d in a call with Oman\u2019s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, the maximum pressure campaign on Iran continues. But as you know, the president has made it clear he wants to see dialogue and discussion with Iran, while making his directive about Iran never being able to obtain a nuclear weapon quite clear,\u201d Leavitt said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Negotiations may or may not yield results\u2019<\/p>\n

On Monday, Trump called for speedy negotiations to resolve the issue and again threatened to take \u201charsh\u201d action against Tehran.<\/p>\n

With the talks under way<\/a>, foreign policy hawks have cautioned Trump against drawn-out negotiations or entering a deal that resembles the JCPOA.<\/p>\n

Last week, nine Republican Congress members \u2014 including Claudia Tenney of New York and Barry Loudermilk of Georgia \u2014 penned a letter to Trump calling for \u201cpermanently stripping Tehran of the ability to enrich uranium\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe regime in Tehran has mastered the art of delay and deception, using diplomatic negotiations as a shield while advancing its nuclear ambitions,\u201d the lawmakers wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot afford another failed agreement that enables Iran to play for time. Nor can we repeat the mistakes of the past by permitting Iran to enrich uranium or maintain the capability to ever reconstitute its nuclear program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel \u2014 the US\u2019s top ally in the region \u2014 is widely believed to have an undeclared nuclear arsenal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Iranian officials have also expressed doubt about a new deal, noting that Tehran lived up to its commitments under the JCPOA while the US abandoned the agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe negotiations may or may not yield results,\u201d Iran\u2019s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. \u201cWe are neither too optimistic nor too pessimistic about them. Of course, we are very sceptical of the other party, but confident in our own capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Washington, DC \u2013 United States special envoy Steve Witkoff has said that Tehran \u201cmust stop and eliminate\u201d its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[6178,32,774,839,12,12617,8041,49,978,286,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-23458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-conflict","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-middle-east","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-nuclear-energy","14":"tag-nuclear-weapons","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-us-canada","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114344987473636245","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}