WASHINGTON — President Trump warned Friday that Iran will not be allowed to enrich uranium — hinting at possible military strikes following the revelation that Tehran has been secretly building out a near weapons-grade nuclear program for months.
“They won’t be enriching. If they enrich, then we’re going to have to do it the other way,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday.
“And I don’t really want to do it the other way but we’re going to have no choice,” he added. “There’s not going to be enrichment.”
Israel also reassured the White House earlier this week that it won’t launch an attack on Iranian nuclear sites unless Trump signals that ongoing talks with Tehran about its nuclear program have failed, Axios reported.
“He may go into a war. But we’re not getting dragged in,” Trump had said of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Time magazine interview in April to mark his first 100 days in office. “I may go in very willingly if we can’t get a deal. If we don’t make a deal, I’ll be leading the pack.”
In May, the president said he’d warned Netanyahu not to bomb Tehran’s nuclear facilities because the US had been “having very good discussions with” Iranian negotiators.
But Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that ending uranium enrichment was “100%” against his country’s interests — and lashed out at the US for being “arrogant” in its proposal for a revamped nuclear deal.
That drafted agreement, submitted by Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff on May 31, permitted low-level uranium enrichment for civilian use.
“Who are you to decide whether Iran should have enrichment?” Khamenei said in a televised speech. “If we had 100 nuclear power plants while not having enrichment, they are not usable for us.”
On Tuesday, the State Department clarified that the US did not support Iran enriching uranium at any level.
“The fact is, President Trump tweeted that there is going to be no uranium enrichment,” spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.
The US and Iran have already gone through five rounds of talks over the nuclear issue — without any breakthroughs.
The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency last week reportedly disclosed that, in the background, Tehran had been upping its 60%-enriched uranium stockpile — from 274.8 kilograms to 408.6 kilograms between February and May — a roughly 50% jump between February and May.
Levels of 90% are considered weapons-grade, and US officials have warned that Iran could convert their stockpile to reach that threshold needed for a single weapon in two weeks’ time.
That prompted Netanyahu to call on international allies “to stop Iran,” sounding the alarm about the uranium enrichment levels being only appropriate for “countries actively pursuing nuclear weapons.”
Trump previously revived a “maximum pressure” of sanctions on Iran after returning to the White House — and European nations privy to the UN nuclear report’s findings may also be considering further snapback sanctions previously lifted under former President Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement with Tehran.
That 2015 deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was supposed to reduce Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium by 98%, though the UN findings have undercut that.
Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.
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