The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing two US officials, that the United States has dropped its demand that Iran ship its 440.9 kg of 60 per cent enriched uranium out of the country, accepting dilution inside Iran as the working mechanism1. Washington had insisted the highly enriched uranium leave Iranian soil, most recently through a Russia-custody arrangement Vladimir Putin reaffirmed at St Petersburg. Tehran refused throughout.
The shift matters because of whose line it crosses. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had named dilution inside Iran as a non-negotiable red line as recently as Friday, so the position Washington just conceded is the one Tehran had set as the wall the deal could not breach. It is the first substantive American give in 106 days of war, and the rhetoric, not the substance, had moved until now.
The concession narrows the open dispute to two questions. The first is duration: Washington wants a 20-year enrichment suspension while Tehran is still discussing roughly 15. The second is verification, the harder of the two, because the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, remains locked out of every facility struck since February. Diluting 60 per cent uranium to reactor grade leaves the material in Iranian hands, so without inspectors on the floor no outside party can confirm the dilution happened.
The White House declined to comment, and Iran issued no public statement on the terms2. A give sourced to two anonymous officials, with both governments silent on the record, may yet prove deal-spin rather than a fixed position. What is not in doubt is that the substance moved for the first time since the talks began.
