Amid stalled talks with Iran and mounting domestic pressure to end the war in West Asia, US President Donald Trump reportedly sent his envoys to consult nuclear experts for negotiations with Tehran.
Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, travelled to the national lab in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, on Thursday for consultations with a team of technical experts who could play a role in nuclear negotiations with Iran, Axios reported. Follow LIVE updates here.
This comes as the White House is trying to reach a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran to end the war and begin in-depth nuclear negotiations. The report said the Trump administration wants experts at the ready should those talks be launched.
The report cited US officials and regional sources involved in the mediation as saying that Washington was still at odds with Tehran on several details of the MOU. According to the quoted sources, the negotiations to end the war were in their final stages, but an agreement is still a bit out of reach.
“This meeting in Oak Ridge doesn’t mean that a deal is going to happen, but it is a sign that the negotiations are in a very serious phase and that there is a good chance to get it done, and we want to be prepared,” a US official quoted in the report said.
The officials said that a team of roughly 100 experts was recently established to participate in nuclear negotiations should a preliminary deal with Iran be reached.
Why Oak Ridge?
Special envoy Steve Witkoff had reportedly made an unannounced trip to eastern Tennessee with Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to visit Energy Department facilities in Oak Ridge.
Some of the foremost experts in uranium processing and centrifuge technology in the United States are based at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex. It is worth noting that the facilities have experience handling foreign nuclear materials and equipment, having worked with material from countries such as Kazakhstan and Libya in the past.
The report said that both envoys made the trip to meet with members of that team and discuss preparations for the potential implementation of a nuclear deal.
Neither the White House nor the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have not issued a statement as of now.
Past work
The team of experts that met with Witkoff and Kushner would have to develop a plan for the disposal of Iran’s nuclear material if the ongoing negotiations advance to the second phase.
This includes rules for further limiting the Iranian nuclear enrichment program and for verifying compliance.
According to the US officials quoted in the report, some of the same experts with whom Witkoff and Kushner met on Thursday participated in the process of recovering enriched uranium from Venezuela earlier this year. That material, from a research reactor, arrived in South Carolina last month for processing.
Some of the nuclear experts who participated in the meeting also joined Kushner and Witkoff in Oman for nuclear negotiations with Iran before the war.
“These are the top nuclear experts in the US who know how to do the technical things that a deal with Iran will entail,” an official said.
The US-Iran deal
It has been reported that the US team reached an agreement with its Iranian counterparts on a 60-day MOU to extend the ceasefire last week.
The plan would see the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, allow Iran to sell oil and launch talks on Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile and limitations on future enrichment.
Later, Donald Trump asked for two amendments to the text last Friday, and the Iranians said they would ask for tweaks of their own. Washington is awaiting the official Iranian response.
The differences
Donald Trump has reportedly asked Tehran to agree that any final deal would include a 60-day deadline to conclude the down-blending of Iran’s enriched uranium, but the Iranians want that deadline to be 90 days, Axios reported, quoting sources briefed on the matter.
How much of Iran’s frozen billions would be released, and when, is also a point of contention. The US has said it would release funds after a final deal is reached and concrete steps are taken to implement it, according to an official. The Iranians, however, want some of the funds released immediately.
An adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, told CNN that the talks were deadlocked over the frozen funds and “the ball is in Trump’s court.”
