In swift reversal, Witkoff says any nuclear deal must ‘eliminate’ Iran’s enrichment, weaponization
Russia declines to say if it will store enriched uranium as part of agreement, with Tehran said set to reject such an offer; Bennett: Mustn’t allow Iran to regroup
White House special envoy Steve Witkoff said Tuesday that any agreement on Iran’s rogue nuclear weapons program would require the Islamic Republic to “stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.” It was an about-face for Witkoff, who had indicated a day earlier, contrary to Israel’s position, that Washington would be satisfied with a cap on Iranian nuclear enrichment and would not require the dismantling of its nuclear facilities.
“A deal with Iran will only be completed if it is a Trump deal,” Witkoff said in a statement from his office’s official X account. “Any final arrangement must set a framework for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East — meaning that Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.”
“It 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,” said Witkoff, who on Saturday commenced nuclear talks with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
On Monday, in a Fox TV interview, Witkoff had indicated that the administration was seeking a deal that would limit rather than destroy Iran’s nuclear program, with a low-level cap on uranium enrichment and checks that Iran was not advancing potential weaponization. The next round of talks with Iran, he said, would focus on “verification on the enrichment program and then ultimately verification on weaponization. That includes missiles — the type of missiles that they have stockpiled there. And it includes the trigger for a bomb,” he added.
Iran has been enriching uranium to 60 percent — a small step from weapons-grade, with no civilian applications — and improving its ballistic missile systems.
It was unclear if Witkoff’s toughened statement came before or after a meeting of top US officials said to have been convened by US President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday morning to discuss the nuclear talks.
The statement came as Russia declined to say if it would agree to take Iran’s stock of enriched uranium as part of a nuclear deal, after the Guardian reported Tehran was set to reject a White House proposal that it move its stock to a third country.
When asked at a daily briefing if Russia would accept Iran’s uranium reserves and if Tehran had discussed such a possibility with Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “I will leave that question without comment.”
Russia, which signed a strategic partnership treaty with Iran in January, says Tehran has the right to peaceful nuclear energy and that any use of military force against it would be illegal and unacceptable. Araghchi is due to visit Russia this week ahead of a second round of talks with the US aimed at resolving the decades-long nuclear standoff between Iran and the West.
Trump speaks to Omani leader
Witkoff, who is also conducting negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal and a Russia-Ukraine truce, on Saturday became the highest-ranking US official to meet with an Iranian counterpart since 2018, when Trump pulled out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
The talks on Saturday, which were hosted and mediated by Oman, ended with a brief direct encounter between Witkoff and Araghchi. Both sides to the talks described them as positive, though Iran said Tuesday that its military capabilities and support for regional terror proxies were a “red line” in the negotiations.
Citing two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, the Axios news site reported that Trump convened top administration officials at the White House situation room Tuesday morning to discuss the negotiations, which are expected to take place in Muscat again on Saturday. The White House declined to comment.
Ahead of the meeting, Trump discussed Oman’s mediation in a phone call with Omani Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, the report said. It quoted the Omani state news agency as saying, “The two leaders discussed ways to back these negotiations to achieve the desired outcomes.”
Axios also cited “sources with knowledge of the issue” as saying the next round of Iran-US talks was moved from Rome to Muscat in part because US Vice President JD Vance was expected to be in the Italian capital over the weekend and “the White House wanted to avoid the overlap.” Several European officials had indicated earlier that the talks would take place in Rome.
Tuesday’s White House meeting included Witkoff, Vance, Trump’s National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA director John Ratcliffe and other top officials, Axios reported.
According to the report, Witkoff and Vance think Washington “should be ready to make some compromises” to achieve a deal with Iran, while Rubio, Waltz and other top officials “are highly skeptical and support a maximalist approach to the negotiations.”
Trump has both threatened to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities and expressed support for a diplomatic resolution of the issue. The US president has also reinstated his first term’s “maximum pressure” policy toward Tehran.
Bennett: Deal should end nuclear program, terror proxies
Iran, whose leaders are sworn to destroy Israel, says it does not seek nuclear weapons, but has since December increased by about a half its already sizable stockpile of 60%-enriched uranium, and is on track to roughly quadruple its production of uranium ore this year, according to international nuclear watchdogs. The enrichment rate is far beyond what is necessary for a civilian nuclear program and a short step away from weapons-grade.
Speaking to Fox News on Monday, Witkoff said that Iran “does not need to enrich past 3.67%.”
“In some circumstances, they’re at 60%, in other circumstances 20%. That cannot be,” he said. “You do not need to run — as they claim — a civil nuclear program where you’re enriching past 3.67%.” However, his statement Tuesday appeared to reject any uranium enrichment.
In Israel, former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who is signaling plans for a 2026 election run to unseat incumbent premier Benjamin Netanyahu, wrote on X Tuesday that “the only deal worth making with Iran is one that: 1. Fully and permanently dismantles its nuclear program. 2. Ends all export of Iranian terrorism. 3. Fully stops ballistic missile development.”
“Under President Trump’s leadership, the US has amassed for itself unprecedented leverage,” said Bennett. “At this moment, America is strong while the regime and its proxies are temporarily weaker than ever, almost defenseless. It would be a historic miss to allow Iran to regroup and threaten us — the US, Israel and the rest of the world — again.”
Rabbi Haim Drukman, at Merkaz Shapira, near Kiryat Malachi, on December 26, 2022. (Gil Cohen-Magen/ AFP)
Netanyahu has said any nuclear deal with Iran must be a “Libya-style agreement,” whereby those responsible “go in, blow up the facilities, dismantle all the equipment, under American supervision with American execution.”
The premier made the comment earlier this month after a brief visit to Washington at which he was reportedly updated about the new Iran-US talks only hours before Trump, hosting him in the Oval Office, announced them. Netanyahu, according to Hebrew media, did not receive assurances that Israel’s demands would be met in the nuclear talks, or regarding what would happen if the talks fell through.
US intelligence has reportedly assessed that Israel would strike Iran in 2025, with the Islamic Republic’s air defenses weakened by the Israeli reprisals to its missile and drone strikes in April and October 2024.
On Tuesday, the Islamic Republic marked the anniversary of the first attack — Tehran’s first-ever direct assault on Israel after a decades-long shadow war.
Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” network of regional proxies has also taken a blow with the ouster in December of Syria’s Iran-backed President Bashar al-Assad, and the weakening of Hezbollah, Hamas and Yemen’s Houthi rebels in their conflict with Israel since the onset of the war in Gaza in October 2023.
