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Trump appears to undercut US proposal to Iran, says no uranium enrichment
President Donald Trump on Monday appeared to undercut a proposal that was offered by his special envoy to Iran, saying he will insist that Tehran fully dismantle its nuclear enrichment programme as part of any deal to ease crushing sanctions.
Trump and Steve Witkoff, who is leading the negotiations for the US, have repeatedly offered inconsistent public messages about whether Iran would be allowed to retain the capacity to enrich uranium to lower levels for civilian purposes. The Trump administration maintains that it will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.
The negotiations have been framed by Trump as both countries' best chance to avoid direct military conflict over Iran's nuclear programme. Tehran, which denies seeking a nuclear weapon, has insisted that it will not agree to any deal that fully scraps its enrichment program.
"Under our potential Agreement WE WILL NOT ALLOW ANY ENRICHMENT OF URANIUM!" Trump wrote on social media.
Addressing the seeming contradiction, a White House official said Trump was speaking the "cold, hard truth." The official said the terms the US gave the Iranians were "very tough" and would make it impossible for them to obtain a nuclear bomb.
Trump's post comes after media reports that Witkoff's latest proposal to Tehran would allow Iran to retain low levels of enrichment for civilian uses like nuclear medicine and commercial power if it agrees to shut down its heavily protected underground sites for a period of time. The US and Iran have engaged in several rounds of direct nuclear talks for the first time in years.
Senior officials, including Witkoff and Trump himself, have said within the last few weeks that Iran would not be able to keep enriching uranium at any level.
The proposal, reported by Axios and confirmed by a US official, called for the creation of a regional consortium to handle uranium enrichment for civilian uses a plan first studied more than a decade ago in negotiations that led to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Trump was sharply critical of that agreement which also allowed set limits on uranium enrichment but permitted Iran to maintain such a capacity and withdrew the US from it in 2017 during his first term.
The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic negotiations.
The International Atomic Energy Agency found that Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels since its last update in February, according to a confidential report released by the UN nuclear watchdog on Saturday.
Iran has maintained that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only, but Iranian officials have increasingly suggested that Tehran could pursue an atomic bomb.
"President Trump has made it clear that Iran can never obtain a nuclear bomb," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement before Trump's post. "Special Envoy Witkoff has sent a detailed and acceptable proposal to the Iranian regime, and it's in their best interest to accept it. Out of respect for the ongoing deal, the Administration will not comment on details of the proposal to the media." The proposal that Trump appeared to undercut on Monday evening included significant concessions by the Administration certain to anger Israel along with pro-Israel lawmakers in the United States.
Several of the main points were essentially the same or very similar to conditions outlined in the 2015 nuclear deal.
Early iterations of that agreement negotiated by the Obama administration also suggested the possibility of a regional consortium that would put Iranian uranium enrichment above a certain level under the control of Iran and its neighbours. The idea was scrapped, however, because of Gulf Arab nations' objections and Iranian suspicions of the ultimate aims of the consortium.
People who were involved in the 18-month negotiations for the 2015 deal reacted immediately to reports that the Trump administration might allow Iran to continue with an enrichment program at any level, particularly after senior officials repeatedly said Iran would not be able to retain such programmes.
"This proposal poses a moment of truth for critics of previous Iran nuclear negotiations/agreements (and) those who have called for a no-enrichment, full-dismantlement deal," Dan Shapiro, Obama's former ambassador to Israel, wrote on X.
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