Iran delivered no written counter and no blend-down offer on its 440.9kg stockpile of 60%-enriched uranium against the tightened US memorandum Donald Trump hand-edited and sent via Pakistan on 1 June. Sixty-percent enrichment sits well above reactor-fuel grade and close to weapons grade, which is why the US demand centres on disposing of that stockpile. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told the IRGC-linked outlet Tasnim there had been 'no tangible progress'1, days after he rang six capitals to reopen the channel he had suspended.
Trump said on Wednesday that talks were 'going very well' and a deal 'could happen over the weekend'2. The two statements describe the same negotiation from opposite ends. Marco Rubio's 2 June testimony had already fixed the US position, that the strait of Hormuz must reopen before anything else and that step buys Tehran no sanctions relief on its own, and Iran has not formally answered it.
Rubio also said on 2 June that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is alive and increasingly engaging, but only in writing through intermediaries, with a 3-to-5-day courier delay on every Iranian reply3. That timing matters. A physical response to the 1 June text could not arrive before 4 to 6 June, so a weekend signing would require Iran to answer faster than its own courier chain allows. Trump's timetable runs ahead of the channel Rubio described.
