US demands ‘no dust, no deal’ in Iran talks - Fox News reporter
The United States will not sign a deal with Iran unless Tehran gives up its highly enriched uranium, Fox News reporter Kayleigh McEnany reported, citing a senior Trump administration official.
“No dust, no deal,” the official was quoted as saying, referring to highly enriched uranium that President Donald Trump has described as “nuclear dust.”
The official said the United States and Iran were “95%” toward a deal and had agreed in principle on a framework covering “the nuclear stockpile” and “the Strait of Hormuz,” but were still negotiating language.
“We don’t have a deal until there is a deal,” the official said, adding that the US could resume military strikes if talks failed.
American negotiators believe Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has approved the “broad template” of a peace deal under which Tehran would agree “in principle” to dispose of its highly enriched uranium, the New York Post reported, citing a senior Trump administration official.
“They will open up the strait in exchange for us lifting the blockade, and they will agree in principle to dispose of the highly enriched uranium,” the official said.
The report said the agreement, which would reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping after months of conflict, could still take days to finalize as both sides continue negotiating the wording of the deal.
“We feel quite confident that the supreme leader has signed off on the broad template,” NY Post quoted the official as saying.
“A lot of this debate is not really what happens to the stockpiled material, but it’s how the Iranians can sell it to their own hardliners and to their own population in a way that gets us what we need as well,” the official said.
“No one disputes that the stockpiled enriched material will be disposed of. It’s a question about how. And then simultaneously, while we’re figuring out that question of how, we’re going to have this thing where the straits open, the blockade is lifted and we get the economy some breathing room.”
Senior Israeli security officials warned that a proposed US-Iran deal “does not serve Israel’s interests,” Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 reported.
The officials reportedly fear the agreement would give Iran time to recover economically and militarily, making it harder for Israel and the United States to resume fighting later.
Channel 12 said Israeli officials were focused on whether Iran’s nuclear material would actually be removed from the country, as US President Donald Trump has pledged.
The report said officials also warned the deal did not address Iran’s missile program or regional proxy network, and stressed that any agreement must preserve Israel’s freedom of action in Lebanon.
Iranian negotiators are demanding the immediate release of $12 billion in frozen assets held in Qatar as a precondition for advancing talks with the United States, an informed source with direct knowledge of the negotiations told Iran International.
Iranian negotiators are demanding the immediate release of $12 billion in frozen assets held in Qatar as a precondition for advancing talks with the United States, an informed source with direct knowledge of the negotiations told Iran International.
According to the source, the release of these specific funds in Qatar is a strict precondition for the initial Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) stage.
Tehran has insisted that actual, guaranteed access to this $12 billion must be granted during this first phase before any preliminary diplomatic understanding can move forward, the source said.
The source emphasized that this $12 billion represents only the immediate tranche required to initiate the diplomatic roadmap, and is not the only capital Iran is claiming.
Tehran's broader negotiating position is that all of its frozen assets globally must be unfrozen and fully released as part of any eventual comprehensive agreement, according to the source.
Earlier in the day, IRGC-linked Tasnim News reported that differences between Iran and the United States over one or two clauses of a possible memorandum of understanding remained unresolved.
Tasnim also reported on Sunday that Iran has insisted any initial memorandum of understanding with the United States should include the release of at least part of its frozen assets in the first step.
The report said Tehran had stressed that the released funds must be accessible to Iran.
It added that Washington had sought in recent weeks to link the release of the assets to a possible final nuclear agreement.
Iran wants part of the funds released at the start of any MOU and a mechanism set for releasing the rest during negotiations, according to the report.
Later in the day, Tasnim said US obstruction of some clauses in a potential agreement with Iran, including the release of Tehran’s blocked assets, was still continuing.
Accordingly, there is still a possibility that the agreement could be canceled, Tasnim's report added.
In April, Reuters reported that Washington had agreed to release $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets held in Qatar and other banks. The funds, linked to Iranian oil sales to South Korea, were moved to Qatari accounts under a 2023 prisoner swap but remained restricted to humanitarian use under US oversight, according to the report.
