During a recent phone call with President Donald Trump, Putin offered to ship Iran's enriched uranium, which has been a cause of the Middle East war, to Russia as part of a deal to end the war. Trump turned him down, Axios sources told The Associated Press. Seizing 450 kilograms of Iran's 60% enriched uranium, which can be converted to weapons-grade uranium within weeks and is enough for more than 10 nuclear bombs, is a key U.S. and Israeli military goal.
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Theoretically, Putin's proposal could help facilitate the withdrawal of Iran's nuclear arsenals without the presence of the United States or Israel. Russia is already a nuclear power. Moreover, it previously stored Iran's low-enriched uranium under the 2015 nuclear deal, making it one of the few countries with the technical capacity to accept the material.
“This is not the first time something like this has been proposed. The proposal was not accepted. The US position is that we need to see uranium secured,” a US official told Axios.
Russia made similar proposals during the US-Iran nuclear talks last May, before the US and Israel attacked Iran's nuclear facilities in June and weeks before the current war. In the last round of talks before the war, Iran rejected the idea of a transfer and proposed enriching uranium at its own facilities under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
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“The president talks to everyone — Xi, Putin, the Europeans — and he's always ready to make a deal. But it has to be a good deal. The president doesn't make bad deals,” the American official said.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a press conference that the US “has a number of options” for taking control of Iran's highly enriched uranium.
He said one option was for Iran to voluntarily surrender its arsenals, which the US would “welcome.”
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Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump, who stated that the US does not need Ukraine's help, called on a number of European and Asian countries to send warships to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, which is effectively blocked by Iran.