Iranian officials warn nuclear talks in peril without uranium compromise

Washington Post-May21st2025

TEHRAN — Iranian officials are urging the United States to agree to a deal over Iran’s nuclear program but warned this week that negotiations could be in jeopardy because of the Trump administration’s insistence that Tehran accept zero enrichment of uranium.

Opening a conference in Tehran, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian called for “brotherhood” but said his country would not respond to “bullying.” He told the audience: “We will not give up this right to use peaceful nuclear technology in any way. No matter what they say, do, how they threaten us or impose sanctions, it makes no difference.” The audience roared with applause.

Pezeshkian’s remarks were echoed by a parade of Iranian officials in briefings and interviews along the sidelines of the gathering, hosted by the Institute for Political and International Studies, an Iranian think tank associated with the country’s Foreign Ministry. Iran granted rare access to a handful of foreign journalists, including from The Washington Post.

While Iranian officials have signaled that their country would be willing to significantly scale back uranium enrichment to levels below those required for producing nuclear weapons, Tehran has demanded that it be allowed to continue enrichment for peaceful ends. Under the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and foreign powers — which President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018 — Iran was permitted to enrich low-level uranium for energy and medical purposes.

Iran bases its right to enrich uranium on the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which it is a signatory. The NPT does not prohibit low-level enrichment for medical, energy and other non-weapons purposes.

A senior Iranian official who briefed journalists said Iranian negotiators are reconsidering whether to participate in a session set for this weekend in Rome after Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said in an interview Sunday with ABC’s “This Week” that zero enrichment would be a “red line” in the talks.

“We don’t want to have a new round of negotiations and they fail,” said the senior Iranian official, who, like some others at the event, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations. “We certainly want to continue diplomacy,” he said, but added that Witkoff’s comments “made the negotiations even more difficult.”

The senior Iranian official suggested that Witkoff may be facing pressure from those opposed to any kind of deal with Iran. “I know that there are tremendous pressures on him, from inside the U.S. and from other parties, from inside the region, from everywhere, but that is not my problem,” he said. “He cannot just face pressures at our expense.”

The senior official said, “If the goal is to ensure that Iran will not have nuclear weapons, that is achievable and if you ask me, that is easily achievable.” But he said if the U.S. seeks to “deprive us of our rights” or “asks for unrealistic, undoable things, we have a problem.”

For many in Iran, Trump’s election victory in November offered hope. Trump is a leader who has long promoted big, flashy deals, Iranian officials said, and who could have a political mandate to push a new Iran nuclear deal through Congress, where many — especially Republicans — have been skeptical of diplomacy with Tehran.