President Trump on Monday evening denied the U.S. was advancing a new deal with Iran that would allow some enrichment of uranium at nuclear facilities, apparently contradicting a report from Axios published earlier in the day.
In a statement on his social media site Truth Social, Trump said “Under our potential Agreement — WE WILL NOT ALLOW ANY ENRICHMENT OF URANIUM!”
Axios reported that U.S. officials on Saturday gave Iran a proposal for a nuclear agreement that would allow low-level uranium enrichment on Iranian soil for a to-be-determined time.
Trump’s top negotiator with Iran, special envoy Steve Witkoff, has sent mixed signals on the issue of enrichment, walking back his suggestion that Iran would be allowed to enrich to limits that were outlined in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Obama-era nuclear deal that Trump withdrew from in 2019.
In April, Witkoff said any deal with Iran must “eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as National Security Advisor, has also said the position of the U.S. is that Iran can not have the ability to enrich uranium.
“They believe that it makes them a threshold nuclear power and as a result becomes untouchable and that is the crux of the situation we’re facing right now,” Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month.
Both the U.S. and Iran have expressed public optimism about a path toward a new deal, however many questions remain about what that deal would look like.
A senior, unnamed Iranian official told CNN that the Trump administration’s latest proposal is “incoherent and disjointed,” raising doubt over Trump’s optimistic pronouncements last week that a deal is within reach.
“The fact that the Americans constantly change their positions has so far been the main obstacle to the success of the talks and now makes the work more difficult than ever,” the official told CNN.
The official also alleged the latest text directly contradicts prior understandings.
“The text is clearly in conflict with the latest agreement reached during the fifth round of negotiations,” the official stated.
Reuters reported on Monday that Iran is poised to reject the U.S. proposal. The U.S. and Iran have held five meetings on negotiating the deal.