by JNS Staff, Amelie Botbol
The U.S. special envoy reiterated that the Trump administration “will not allow” Tehran to produce a nuclear bomb.
 |
| Steve Witkoff, U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, speaks at an event marking Israel's 77th Independence Day at the Israeli ambassador's residence in Washington, May 5, 2025. Photo by Shmulik Almany/Israeli Embassy in Washington. |
Washington will not accept enrichment of uranium in any deal with Tehran, U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff said on Sunday.
“We have one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment. We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability,” Witkoff said in an interview with ABC’s “This Week.”
An indispensable condition for an accord with Iran from U.S. President Donald Trump’s perspective, the envoy continued, is that it “does not include enrichment. We cannot have that. Because enrichment enables weaponization. And we will not allow a bomb to get here.”
He added that U.S.-Iran talks will resume this week in Europe, expressing optimism that they “will lead to some real positivity.”
The Islamic Republic swiftly rejected Witkoff’s demand.
“Unrealistic expectations stop negotiations, enrichment in Iran is not something that can be stopped,” the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi as saying.
“I think [Witkoff] is completely at a distance from the reality of the negotiations,” Araqchi added.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takhtravanchi reaffirmed the stance of his superior on Monday, saying that Tehran will not compromise on its ability to enrich uranium and that negotiations “will lead nowhere” if Washington insists otherwise, Reuters reported.
“Our position on enrichment is clear and we have repeatedly stated that it is a national achievement from which we will not back down,” Takhtravanchi said.
Speaking with JNS at his weekly faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem on Monday, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid Party) commended Witkoff and the U.S. administration “for putting a very clear red line on what Iran can or cannot do.
“There are five conditions that should be the base of every future agreement with Iran,” Lapid said, naming no enrichment of uranium, removing enriched uranium, dismantling centrifuges, instituting unlimited supervision and addressing the ballistic missile program.
“Without this, any agreement will not be operative or useful to protect the world from the idea of a nuclear Iran,” said the opposition leader.
Concluding his trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on Friday, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that the Iranians “have a proposal. More importantly, they know they have to move quickly or something bad—something bad is going to happen.”
During Trump’s first term, he withdrew the United States from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It stipulated, among other things, that Iran was not supposed to enrich uranium beyond the 3.67% level for 15 years.
If an agreement is reached now, it would presumably lift sanctions from the Islamic Republic in exchange for the promised dismantling of its nuclear program.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News on Thursday that Iran has become a “threshold nuclear weapon state.”
When asked about published reports that the Iranian regime has enriched uranium to “quite a high” level, Rubio replied that the 60% threshold of enrichment is a misleading number.
“Actually, 90% of the work it takes to get to weapons-grade enrichment is getting to 60. Once you’re at 60, you’re 90% of the way there. You are, in essence, a threshold nuclear weapon state, which is what Iran basically has become.
“If they decided to do so, they could do so very quickly,” Rubio continued. “If they stockpile enough of that 60% enriched, they could very quickly turn it into 90 and weaponize it.”
MK Avigdor Liberman, leader of the opposition Yisrael Beiteinu Party, told JNS at the Knesset in Jerusalem on Monday that he sees “no chance” of the Islamic Republic giving up its nuclear abilities as part of a deal.
“Everything they say is: Forget about giving up uranium enrichment on Iranian soil,” said Liberman after his faction meeting, adding that this view is widely shared among the regime’s top and lower leadership.
“How can you possibly reach an agreement with Iran this way?” asked Liberman, a former minister of defense and minister of foreign affairs.
On Saturday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei once again threatened Israel, saying that the “Zionist regime” is “a dangerous, deadly cancerous tumor in the region” that “must be uprooted [and] will be uprooted.”
He charged Israel with being “the source of corruption, the source of war, and the source of discord” in the Middle East.
JNS Staff, Amelie Botbol
Source: https://www.jns.org/witkoff-on-iran-not-even-1-of-enrichment-capability/
No comments:
Post a Comment