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Kazakhstan has indicated that it is willing to take Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched close to weapons-grade levels if Washington and Tehran reach a deal over the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme, the head of the UN’s watchdog said.
Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the FT that the central Asian state expressed its openness to keeping the stockpile when he met Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Astana this week.
The fate of Iran’s 440kg of uranium enriched to 60 per cent purity is one of the thorniest issues in back-channel talks between Washington and Tehran over a deal to end the US-Israeli war against Iran. President Donald Trump has demanded that it be transferred out of the republic.
In public, Tehran has indicated it would not hand over the stockpile. But there would be a commitment to discussing either diluting or transferring the fissile material as part of the deal to extend a fragile ceasefire by 60 days, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and lay the framework for talks on its nuclear programme, people briefed on the proposal said.
A US official said on Thursday that negotiators from both sides had reached a memorandum of understanding over a deal, but that Trump had not yet approved the document and needed some days to think about it.
US vice-president JD Vance later on Thursday said Washington was “not there yet” but that the parties were close, adding that sticking points included the stockpile.
The Kazakh president’s office, foreign ministry and energy ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The 440kg of highly enriched uranium is believed to be beneath the rubble of Iran’s three main nuclear facilities — Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan — that the US bombed after briefly joining Israel’s 12-day war against the republic last June.
It is enough to produce about 10 weapons if further enriched to 90 per cent.
Trump boasted that the June strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme. But experts say that as long as Iran has the stockpile, the threat that Iran could try to develop weapons if it chose to do so would remain.
The republic, which insists its programme is for peaceful civilian purposes, also has more than 9,000kg of uranium enriched to much lower levels.
Grossi told the FT that because the IAEA has a “bank” for low-enriched uranium in Kazakhstan “we have a place where this could be stored safely”.
He added he thought it “could be” acceptable to both the US and Iran. The fate of the stockpile, however, would only be determined by the nuclear talks that are supposed to follow an agreement on the MOU.
Trump said on Truth Social this week that the highly enriched uranium must “either be immediately turned over to the United States . . . or, preferably, in conjunction with the Islamic republic of Iran, destroyed in place”.
“Or at another acceptable location, with the Atomic Energy Commission, or its equivalent, being witness to this process and event.”
Separately, Trump said he “wouldn’t be comfortable” with either Russia or China taking the stockpile.
As well as dealing with the uranium, the US has been pushing Iran to accept a 20-year moratorium on enrichment.
The IAEA has long been responsible for monitoring Iran’s nuclear programme, and imposed a strict verification programme as part of the 2015 nuclear deal Tehran signed with the Obama administration and other world powers.
However, Iran’s co-operation with the IAEA significantly diminished after Trump abandoned that deal in his first term, and it has not been able to inspect the republic’s main nuclear sites since the June war.
Grossi provided technical advice when the US and Iran last held nuclear talks in February, days before Trump joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in launching the war.
At the time, mediator Oman said the parties were close to a deal, but US officials disputed that there was significant progress at the talks.
Grossi said he believed both sides at the time were willing to make concessions and wanted a deal. Asked about the chances of a nuclear deal today, Grossi added: “It’s always possible.”
Additional reporting by Polina Ivanova
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