Iran Orders 440kg Uranium Stockpile to Stay in Country
Iran’s supreme leader has ordered that the country’s uranium stockpile should not leave Iran, placing a 440kg reserve of material enriched to 60 percent at the center of talks with the United States. The directive, reported on Thursday, sharpens a dispute over whether the stockpile can be transferred out of the country or must remain inside Iran.
United States President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the US will not permit Iran to keep its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. He told reporters at the White House: “We will get it. We don’t need it, we don’t want it. We’ll probably destroy it after we get it, but we’re not going to let them have it,”
Trump and Khamenei
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei’s directive, attributed by to one of two unnamed Iranian sources, puts Iran’s position in direct conflict with Trump’s public demand. also reported that Trump had assured Israel that Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile will be sent out of Iran, and that any peace deal will include a clause on the stockpile.
The stockpile is believed to be almost entirely in hexafluoride gas form, and the 60 percent enrichment level sits below the 90 percent required for weapons-grade material. Nuclear experts say 60 percent is the point at which uranium becomes much quicker to reach 90 percent, which is why the reserve has become the chief sticking point in US-Iran negotiations.
From 2015 to 2021
Iran signed a deal with the US in 2015 to limit its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump withdrew from that agreement in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran, after which Iran moved from the 3.67 percent allowed under the deal to almost 60 percent. Iran made that decision after the US withdrawal and after the 2021 bombing of its Natanz nuclear facility.
Rafael Grossi, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in early March that the amount of enriched uranium would be enough to produce more than 10 nuclear warheads if it were enriched to 90 percent. Iran says its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes only and that it does not intend to build nuclear weapons.
Iran Deal Clause
The immediate issue now is whether a peace deal can move forward with both sides insisting on opposite outcomes for the same stockpile. Trump has tied any arrangement to removing the material from Iran, while the directive from Tehran points in the other direction, leaving the uranium clause as the test of whether talks can produce a deal both sides will accept.
The next pressure point is the peace negotiation itself, where reported the stockpile clause will be part of any agreement.
