Trump rejects Putin's proposal to relocate Iranian uranium to Russia

Washington — US President Donald Trump has rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to transfer Iran’s enriched uranium to Russia as part of a deal to end the US-Israel conflict with Iran, according to an American news website reported on Friday (13 March).

Trump declined Putin’s proposal during a telephone call earlier this week, according to sources who spoke to Axios, an American news website based in Arlington, Virginia.

During the telephone conversation with Trump on Monday (9 March), Putin presented several ideas, including the uranium transfer proposal, aimed at ending the conflict, the report stated.

“This is not the first time the proposal has been put forward. It has not been accepted. The US position is that we need to ensure the uranium is secured,” a US official said, as quoted by Axios.

It remains unclear whether Iran would accept the proposal at this time. In the final round of negotiations before the conflict, Iran rejected the uranium transfer idea and instead proposed diluting uranium within its own facilities under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), according to the report.

Several news reports have mentioned that the Trump administration is considering sending special operations forces to Iran to secure or seize the country’s highly enriched uranium.

When asked in an interview with Fox News on Friday about operations to seize enriched uranium from Iran, Trump responded, “We are not focused on that. However, at some point, we may do it.”