Iranian negotiators had boasted about their ability to produce 11 nuclear bombs in talks that were designed to avert a U.S.-Israeli military intervention in Iran, Steve Witkoff, one of the two U.S. negotiators who took part in the meetings, said on Monday.
“Both the Iranian negotiators said to us directly with, you know, no shame, that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60% [enriched uranium] and they’re aware that that could make 11 nuclear bombs, and that was the beginning of their negotiating stance,” said Witkoff, U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East, in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
Witkoff and Jared Kushner, a senor advisor to the president during President Donald Trump’s first term in office, spoke with Iranian negotiators in Geneva, Switzerland days before the United States and Israel launched their joint military operation in Iran.
The Iranians “were proud of it, they were proud that they had evaded all sorts of oversight protocols to get to a place where they could deliver 11 nuclear bombs,” Witkoff added.
The United States was willing to offer “10 years of no enrichment whatsoever, and we would pay for the fuel, and it was flatly rejected,” Witkoff also revealed.
At the launch of the military operation, dubbed “Operation Epic Fury” by the United States and “Operation Roaring Lion” by Israel, the Iranians had roughly 10 tons, of “fissionable material that’s broken up into roughly 460 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium and another 1,000 kilograms of 20% enriched uranium, and the balance is at 3.67[%],” said Witkoff.
“They manufacture their own centrifuges to enrich this material. So there’s almost no stopping them. They have an endless supply of it. The 60% materials can be brought to 90%—that’s weapons grade—in roughly one week, maybe 10 days at the outside. The 20% can be brought to weapons grade inside of three to four weeks,” he added.
Witkoff did not say whether the military operation’s launch on Saturday had affected the timetables he specified.
In hindsight, the Iranian position was “pretty silly,” Witkoff said, “but they thought they could strongarm us.”
Witkoff said that Trump had sent him and Kushner “to really determine on his behalf whether they [the Iranians] were serious about doing a deal that addressed his objectives, which are elimination of their of their missile program, elimination of their advocacy and support for proxies, which is destabilizing the entire Middle East, elimination of their navy so we can have freedom of the seas and not be threatened with the shutdown of the Gulf of Hormuz, and finally, no nuclear enrichment that can get them to weapons grade, which means no nuclear bomb. And we went in there and tried to make a fair deal with them.”
