Details of a two-week U.S. ceasefire deal with Iran remain unclear, but President Donald Trump said Wednesday the two countries could cooperate to recover enriched uranium Tehran has buried deep underground. Preventing Iran from acquiring or producing fuel for a nuclear weapon has been a stated objective of the administration.
In a social media post, Trump said there would be no uranium enrichment and that the United States, working with Iran, would ‘dig up and remove’ deeply buried nuclear material described as ‘dust’ remaining in rubble after last June’s strikes on Fordo and other sites during Operation Midnight Hammer. He added the sites have been under continuous satellite surveillance and that nothing has been disturbed since the attacks.
Trump has not ruled out sending U.S. ground forces to seize material, an option military analysts say would be risky and would likely require a large special operations deployment.
Iranian officials have not publicly discussed any arrangement with the United States to recover nuclear material.
At a Pentagon briefing, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed the president, saying any nuclear material Iran should not possess will be removed. Hegseth said the buried material is monitored around the clock, that U.S. intelligence knows what is there, and that Tehran will either hand it over voluntarily or the U.S. reserves other options, including actions similar to past strikes.