US envoy says Iran began nuclear talks insisting on ‘inalienable right’ to enrich

The United States’ special envoy for Middle East negotiations, Steve Witkoff, said Iran opened recent nuclear talks by asserting an “inalienable right” to enrich all of its nuclear fuel, a stance that surprised the US delegation and underscored the difficulty of reaching a deal.

"We discussed with them 10 years of no enrichment whatsoever, and we would pay for the fuel, and it was flatly rejected, and the President seemed to have a good faith negotiation," Witkoff said. "And they rejected that, which told us at that very moment that they had no notion of doing anything other than retaining enrichment for the purpose of weaponizing."

"They have 10,000 roughly kilograms of fissionable material that's broken up into roughly 460 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium, another 1000 kilograms of 20% enriched uranium, and the balance is at 3.67 they manufacture their own centrifuges to enrich this material. So there's almost no stopping them," Witkoff added.

"And let me say this because I forgot this small little detail in that first meeting the both the Iranian negotiators said to us directly with you know with no shame that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60% and they're aware that that could make 11 nuclear bombs. And that was the beginning of their negotiating stance. So that's, that's they were. They were proud of it. They were proud that they had evaded all sorts of oversight protocols to get to a place where they could deliver 11 nuclear bombs," he said.