NEW YORK, May 18. /TASS/. US special presidential envoy has warned Tehran of his country’s principled position that The United States cannot allow Iran to continue enriching uranium as this may lead to weaponization.
"We have one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment," he told ABC News. "We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability. <…> But everything begins for our — from our standpoint with a deal that does not include enrichment. We cannot have that. Because enrichment enables weaponization."
According to Witkoff, the United States wants "to get to a solution here." "And we think that we will be able to," he added.
The United States and Iran have held four rounds of Oman-brokered talks on settling differences around Tehran’s nuclear program. The first round was held in Muscat on April 12, the second one - in Rome on April 19, and the third and fourth rounds took place in the Omani capital city on April 26 and May 11. The Iranian delegation to the consultations is held by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, while Witkoff heads the US delegation.
The Iranian foreign ministry said earlier that in case anti-Iranian sanctions are lifted, Tehran would be ready to negotiate with the US potential limits on the volume and level of uranium enrichment but will never abandon its nuclear program, insisting that the right to develop peaceful nuclear technologies is guaranteed to all signatories to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and Tehran was among the first to sign it.
Iran nuclear deal background
The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known as the Iran nuclear deal, with Iran in 2015, putting an end to a long-running standoff about Iran’s alleged development of nuclear weapons. However, during his first presidential term, US President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 and re-imposed all the anti-Iranian sanctions after they began to be lifted under the deal.
In response, Iran announced in 2020 that it would reduce its commitments under the JCPOA and limit access for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors. Negotiations to restore the nuclear deal took place in Vienna from 2021 to 2022 but yielded no results. Joe Biden, who was US President between Trump’s two terms, repeatedly declared his country’s readiness to get back to the deal, but once in the White House again in 2025, Trump signed an executive order to resume a policy of maximum pressure on Iran and warned about the potential use of military force should Tehran reject a new deal with Washington.