This comes a day after a senior administration official told reporters that the US and Iran are close to a deal requiring Iran to relinquish its uranium, which has been enriched to near-bomb grade.
Iran has escalated efforts to seal off its stockpile of enriched uranium, collapsing tunnels, and placing explosive mines at entrances in recent weeks, CNN reported on Saturday, citing five sources familiar with US intelligence. This comes a day after a senior administration official told reporters that the US and Iran are close to a deal requiring Iran to relinquish its uranium, which has been enriched to near-bomb grade, to the US.
Reuters also reported on Friday that the emerging US-Iran deal will include the dismantling of the Iranian nuclear program and allow the US to collect the regime's enriched uranium. However, details of how the uranium will be extracted have not been made clear. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that retrieving the uranium is one of the US’s priorities in negotiations, although he has claimed that only the US and possibly China have the capability to do so.
A CNN report from Friday stated that the US had originally planned to launch a ground mission into Iran to recover the uranium, but that Trump had paused the operation. In an interview with 103FM, former defense minister Yoav Gallant said that the US and Israel could and should have combined forces to retrieve the uranium during the war. “We should have gone and brought the enriched uranium by force in a military operation during the campaign. That would have uprooted the nuclear program from Iran,” he said. (Ed note: Gee, this kind of tells President Trump how they feel about their uranium, and what they think about his negiotations, doesn't it?) (Read More)
