While the peace talks between the US and Iran have stalled due to Donald Trump cancelling sending a delegation to Islamabad, the US President reiterated what he has said a number of times now, that Washington would take Tehran’s “nuclear dust”.
Trump told Fox News on Sunday that it was a “part of negotiations”.
“We are going to take Iran’s nuclear dust, part of the negotiation,” Trump said, referring to remaining enriched uranium, and added, “If Iran wants to talk, they can call us”. Track updates on Iran US conflict
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi returned to Islamabad after his trip to Oman, but Trump is not sending his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to the Pakistani capital.
What is ‘nuclear dust’?
“Nuclear dust” has been Trump’s phrase for Iran’s highly enriched uranium that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) believes is buried deep underneath the ground following US strikes on three key Iranian nuclear facilities during the 12-day war in June last year.
While Trump has said in the past that Iran has agreed to hand it over to the US, Tehran has always denied any such agreement, even calling the demand “maximalist”.
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“There will be no enrichment of Uranium,” Trump said over a week ago, adding that the United States would work with Iran to “dig up and remove all of the deeply buried nuclear ‘dust.'”
Iran was believed to have more than 400 kilograms of 60 per cent highly enriched uranium and nearly 200 kilograms of 20 per cent fissile material before the US and Israel launched airstrikes on the Islamic Republic in June last year. The biggest concern that the US and Israel say they have is that all that material can be easily converted into 90 per cent weapons-grade uranium, although Iran has repeatedly said it doesn’t intend to make a nuclear weapon.
According to Tehran, its objective in enriching uranium is power generation and energy security, not a nuclear weapon.
Where Iran’s nuclear dust is buried
Much of Iran’s uranium stockpile is believed to be buried under the rubble of a mountain facility that the US bombed in June with bunker buster bombs carried by its stealth B-2 bombers. Trump had claimed at the time that the bombing had “obliterated” Tehran’s nuclear programme.
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According to IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, Iran’s nuclear material is mainly stored at two of the three sites that the US attacked– an underground tunnel at the nuclear complex in Isfahan and a cache at Natanz.
Reports have claimed that the Iranians have centrifuges to enrich uranium and the capability to set up a new underground enrichment site.