Iran said during nuclear talks that it had 460 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium that could be enough to make 11 nuclear warheads, US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff has claimed.
Iran said during nuclear talks that it had 460 kilograms of 60 per cent enriched uranium that could be enough to make 11 nuclear warheads, US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff has claimed.
In an interview with Fox News, Witcoff claimed that Iranian negotiators “were proud that they had evaded all sorts of oversight protocols to get to a place where they could deliver 11 nuclear bombs”.
“In that first meeting, both the Iranian negotiators said to us directly with no shame that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60 per cent [enriched uranium] and that they’re aware that could make 11 nuclear bombs,” Witkoff further said.
Witkoff added that Iranian negotiators also stressed that they had “an inalienable right” to enrich uranium.
Witkoff said he responded by telling Iranian negotiators that Trump felt he had “inalienable right to stop you dead in your tracks”.
The claim has come at a time when the administration has been finding ways to justify the war on Iran. As the attack was unprovoked, the administration has said that Iran was in a position to make a nuclear weapon in a week’s time and that’s it joined Israel in a pre-emptive offensive. But the narrative afoul of President Donald Trump’s longstanding claim that Iran’s nuclear facilities and capabilities were “obliterated” last year.
Trump, Witkoff, or anyone else have not explained how Iran was just a week away from making nuclear weapons and how it had 460 kg of highly enriched uranium if the nuclear facilities and capabilities were “obliterated” last year.
Moreover, the information about Iran retaining 460 kg of 60 per cent enriched uranium —a level below the weapons-grade 90 per cent— was not new.
Last year, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi said that Iran had around 440 kg of 60 per cent enriched uranium before the United States struck its nuclear site in June and most of the stockpiled had survived the war.
Witkoff said the objective of talks was to reach a deal in which Iran would agree to eliminate its missile programme, cease its support for proxies in West Asia, eliminate its navy “so we can have freedom of the seas”, and cease its nuclear enrichment.
“We went in there and tried to make a fair deal with them, and it was very, very clear that it was going to be impossible probably by the end of the second meeting. But we then went back for the third meeting just to give it the last college try. They wanted us to report positivity. It was not positive that meeting,” said Witkoff.
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