Iran’s supreme leader has reportedly ordered that the country’s enriched uranium stockpile must stay inside Iran, putting the hardest unresolved nuclear issue back at the center of U.S.-Iran peace talks.
The new development is not just another broad statement that negotiations are difficult. It is a specific reported directive on the one technical issue Washington says any deal must settle: what happens to Iran’s roughly 440kg, or 970lb, of uranium enriched to 60 percent.
Reuters reported Thursday, citing two unnamed senior Iranian sources, that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei had issued a directive saying the enriched uranium should not be sent abroad. Al Jazeera reported Friday that the directive directly collides with President Donald Trump’s public demand that Iran not be allowed to keep the stockpile.
“We will get it. We don’t need it, we don’t want it. We’ll probably destroy it after we get it, but we’re not going to let them have it,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday, according to Al Jazeera.
The uranium question is now the deal breaker
The stockpile matters because 60 percent enriched uranium is below the roughly 90 percent level used for weapons-grade material, but far above what is normally needed for civilian nuclear power. Nuclear experts have long warned that the jump from 60 percent to weapons-grade material can be much faster than the earlier stages of enrichment.
Al Jazeera reported that Iran is believed to hold about 440kg of uranium enriched to 60 percent. It also cited International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi’s earlier assessment that, if enriched further, that quantity could theoretically be enough for more than 10 nuclear warheads.
Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful. The United States, Israel, and other Western governments say Tehran cannot be allowed to retain a near-weapons-grade stockpile after the war and the collapse of earlier nuclear limits.
That is why the reported directive changes the tone of the talks. Iran had previously signaled possible technical options, including transferring material to a third party or downblending it to a lower enrichment level. A supreme-leader order against removal narrows that room and makes the dispute harder to solve with vague diplomatic language.
Washington says there is progress, but not enough
The uranium fight is landing at the same time U.S. officials are trying to keep the diplomatic track alive. Reuters separately reported Friday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio saw progress in the Iran talks but said the sides were “not there yet.”
CNBC reported that both sides were signaling possible movement while remaining split over enriched uranium and Strait of Hormuz tolls. That combination explains why the latest reporting is important: diplomacy may still be moving, but the two most explosive issues are still sitting in the middle of the table.
For Washington, the uranium stockpile is a verification problem. If Iran keeps the material, any deal will have to explain how the stockpile is monitored, reduced, or otherwise kept from becoming a breakout risk. For Tehran, giving it up could look like surrendering a central bargaining chip while sanctions, military pressure, and the Hormuz fight remain unresolved.
Moving the material is possible, but not simple
Al Jazeera’s explainer also points to a practical issue beneath the politics. Much of Iran’s enriched uranium is believed to be in uranium hexafluoride form, a dangerous gas stored in specialized cylinders. If released, uranium hexafluoride can form toxic and corrosive compounds.
The IAEA has protocols for transporting enriched uranium, including heavily fortified 30B cylinders designed to reduce pressure, heat, and criticality risks. There is also precedent for moving dangerous nuclear material: the United States flew about 600kg of weapons-grade uranium out of Kazakhstan in 1994 under Project Sapphire.
But the existence of a safe transport process does not solve the political problem. Someone would have to control the route, verify the material, secure the transfer, and satisfy both Iran and the United States that the stockpile could not be quietly retained, hidden, or reconstituted.
Why this is a new Iran-crisis angle
List25 has already covered the uranium deadlock in earlier talks. The fresh angle now is sharper: the reported supreme-leader directive turns that deadlock into a formal red line inside Iran’s decision-making system.
If the Reuters report holds, negotiators are no longer just debating how to phrase a future uranium compromise. They are trying to bridge a direct contradiction. Trump says Iran cannot keep the stockpile. Iranian sources say Khamenei has ordered that it cannot leave.
That leaves three broad paths: Iran reverses or softens the directive, Washington accepts a monitored in-country arrangement, or the talks stall over the same issue that both sides are now treating as non-negotiable. None of those paths is easy, and each one carries direct consequences for the wider Iran crisis, including sanctions, Israeli security demands, and the still-unstable Strait of Hormuz.
For now, the uranium stockpile is the clearest test of whether the latest diplomatic progress is real. If the sides cannot solve this, the rest of the deal may not matter.