President Donald Trump said Monday night his administration’s new Iran nuclear deal would not include any uranium enrichment, contradicting prior reports.
Trump said that the U.S. “will not allow any enrichment of Uranium” in a Truth Social post Monday night, contradicting reporting from Axios that the administration planned to allow civilian-grade enrichment in their proposed deal. Iran has insisted that any deal regulating their nuclear program would have to include provisions for enriching Uranium up to at least 3%.
“The AUTOPEN should have stopped Iran a long time ago from ‘enriching,’” Trump said in his post. “Under our potential Agreement — WE WILL NOT ALLOW ANY ENRICHMENT OF URANIUM!”
Two sources with direct knowledge of the deal told Axios that U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff reportedly offered the deal to Iranian officials Saturday, and that the proposal apparently included provisions to restrict uranium enrichment to civilian-grade only in strictly above-ground sites and allow oversight from the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA).
Prior to Axios’ reporting, Trump administration officials were adamant that no enrichment would be a condition of any deal with Iran.
Iran’s stockpile of 60% purity uranium, which is enriched close to the roughly 90% levels needed for weapons, had grown to 408.6 kg, according to a confidential IAEA report viewed by Reuters on Saturday. Moreover, Iran has the capability to make nuclear weapons in about three weeks with its current stockpiles of weapons-ready uranium, the IAEA stated in February.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was an Obama-era nuclear deal that also sought to limit Iran’s nuclear ambitions by only allowing civilian enrichment overseen by the IAEA. However, the deal was criticized by many conservatives for being too soft on Iran, given its built-in sunset provisions.
Some critics have drawn comparisons between the JCPOA and proposals for civilian enrichment reportedly being floated by some Trump administration officials.
The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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