Iran could be allowed to resume uranium enrichment within a decade in a new deal being weighed by Donald Trump in a bid to reach a compromise in the Middle East crisis.
Donald Trump is reportedly weighing an option that would allow Iran to resume uranium enrichment within a decade.
The US president has offered varying reasons for war in Iran, but has always said the primary goal is to ensure the country “never has a nuclear weapon.”
Iran has 440.9 kg of uranium enriched to 60% purity, a small technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency.
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The current arsenal could allow Iran to build up to 10 nuclear bombs, should it decide to weaponize its program, IAEA Director General Rafael Gross said.
And now, a new proposal being considered by Trump would reportedly have Iran suspend uranium enrichment for the next few years before allowing the regime to produce some low-enriched uranium over the next decade, the New York Times reported.
Trump is alleged to have pushed for a 20-year suspension because he feared anything less would make his deal look too much like the 2015 nuclear deal he ultimately scrapped. The nuclear deal signed by Barack Obama prevented Iran from enriching uranium above civilian levels for 15 years.
Iran has long insisted its program is peaceful, but the IAEA and Western nations say Tehran had an organized nuclear weapons program until 2003.
IAEA inspectors have been unable to verify near-weapons-grade uranium since June 2025, when Israeli and U.S. strikes greatly weakened Iran’s air defenses, military leadership and nuclear program. The lack of inspections has made it difficult to know exactly where it is.
Grossi has said the IAEA believes a stockpile of about 200kg of highly enriched uranium is stored in tunnels at Iran’s nuclear complex outside Isfahan. The site was primarily known for producing uranium gas that is fed to centrifuges to be centrifuged and purified.
Additional quantities are believed to be at the Natanz nuclear site and smaller quantities may be stored at a facility in Fordo, he said.
And experts have also said how difficult it would be for the United States to ensure that Iran does not have enriched uranium, since it would be difficult to locate and then remove it.
Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium fits into canisters that weigh about 50kg each when full. The material is in the form of uranium hexafluoride gas and the number of containers is estimated to range from 26 to about twice that number, depending on how full each cylinder is.
The canisters containing highly enriched uranium are “pretty robust” and designed for storage and transportation, said David Albright, a former nuclear weapons inspector in Iraq and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nonprofit organization in Washington.
But he warned that “safety issues become paramount” if containers are damaged (for example, by airstrikes) and allow moisture in.
