The United States and Iran are starting negotiations in Pakistan on Friday. The issue of Iranian uranium stocks is proving to be a particularly sensitive point.
Published on: 09/04/2026 10:19 Reading time: 2min
A satellite view of the Fordo uranium enrichment site in Iran, south of Tehran, on February 12, 2025. (SATELLITE IMAGE ©2021 MAXAR TECH)
After over a month of war and a dramatic turnaround between annihilation threats and a two-week ceasefire announced by Donald Trump, Washington and Tehran are reopening dialogue on Friday, April 10 in Islamabad, with the Pakistani negotiator.
At the heart of the discussions is the Iranian nuclear issue, its stocks, and their future, likely the most sensitive point in these negotiations. Before the US strikes last June, Iran reportedly had around 440 kg of enriched uranium at 60%. Since then, these stocks have partly disappeared from radar.
Some would still be buried in the tunnels of the Isfahan site. Other quantities have reportedly been moved, especially from Fordo or Natanz, sometimes just before the bombings. Donald Trump talks about cooperation with Tehran to extract this “nuclear dust,” as he puts it.
His Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has made it clear: Iran cannot keep this nuclear capability. It is non-negotiable for Americans. He threatens that Iranians will have to hand it over or the US will retrieve it themselves, “by any means necessary.” However, it is stored in gas form, in metal cylinders, scattered, protected, and difficult to access. Retrieving it would be an extremely heavy military operation. On the other side, Iran maintains its stance: its right to enrichment for civilian purposes.
Just before the start of the war, Tehran had even accepted the principle of diluting its stock in exchange for a lifting of sanctions. The entire negotiation will hinge on these American and Iranian red lines, and the reality of a stock that is difficult to locate and even harder to neutralize.
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