WASHINGTON, March 14 — U.S. President Donald Trump has rejected a proposal by Russian President Vladimir Putin to move Iran’s enriched uranium to Russia as part of a deal to end the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, a U.S. news website reported Friday.
Trump turned Putin down in a phone call earlier this week, sources told Axios, an American news website based in Arlington, Virginia.
Putin raised several ideas, including the uranium proposal, for ending the war during the phone conversation with Trump on Monday, said the report.
“This is not the first time it was offered. It hasn’t been accepted. The U.S. position is we need to see the uranium secured,” a U.S. official was quoted as saying.
It’s not clear whether Iran would accept the proposal now. In the last round of talks before the war, Iran rejected the transfer idea and proposed diluting the uranium inside its own facilities under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to the report.
Some news reports said that the Trump administration is considering sending special operations forces into Iran to secure or seize the country’s highly enriched uranium.
When asked during a Friday Fox News interview whether there’s an operation in place to recover the enriched uranium from Iran, Trump said, “We’re not focused on that. But at some point we might be.” (Namibia Daily News / Xinhua)
