Trump turned down Putin, who offered to bring Iran's uranium to Russia. “Don't make bad deals”

Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed to US President Donald Trump, in a telephone conversation held on March 9, to move Iran's enriched uranium to Russia as part of an agreement to end the war. Trump rejected the proposal, a US official told Axios.

Securing the 450 kilograms of Iranian uranium enriched to 60% – enough to produce more than 10 nuclear bombs – is one of the key war objectives of the US and Israel, notes Axios.

In theory, Putin's offer could facilitate the elimination of Iran's nuclear stockpile without a US or Israeli military presence on the ground.

Russia is already a nuclear power and previously stored low-enriched Iranian uranium under the 2015 nuclear deal, being one of the few countries with the technical capacity to accept the material.

Putin brought several ideas to end the war between the US and Iran in Monday's phone call with Trump. The uranium proposal was one of them.

“This is not the first time this has been proposed to us. It has not been accepted. The US position is that we need to see uranium secured,” a US official told Axios on condition of anonymity.

“The president talks to everyone – Xi, Putin, the Europeans – and is always willing to make a deal. But it has to be a good deal. The president doesn't make bad deals,” the US official said.

When did Russia propose to take over Iran's uranium

Russia made similar proposals during the US-Iran nuclear negotiations last May – before the US and Israel attacked Iran's nuclear facilities in June – and in the weeks before the current war began.

In the last round of negotiations before the war, Iran rejected the idea of ​​the transfer and proposed diluting the uranium in its own facilities, under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

It is not clear whether Iran would now accept the proposal.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a press conference on Friday that the US “has a range of options” to take control of Iran's highly enriched uranium.

Hegseth said one option would be for Iran to voluntarily surrender the stockpile, which the US would “welcome”.

“They have not been willing to do that in the negotiations. I would never tell this group or the world what we are willing to do or how far we are willing to go, but we certainly have options,” he added.

Trump says Putin is “helping” Iran a little

In an interview on Fox News Radio on Friday, Trump suggested that securing highly enriched uranium is not currently a top priority: “We're not focused on that, but at some point we might be,” he said.

Trump also acknowledged for the first time that Russia is helping Iran in the war, after days of reports that Moscow was providing intelligence to target American forces.

“I think (Putin) might help them a little bit, yes. And he probably thinks we're helping Ukraine, right?” Trump said in the Fox interview.

“So he says this, and China would say the same thing. It's like: they do this and we do this, to be fair,” Trump concluded.