PHOENIX, TEHRAN — President Donald Trump said Iran's uranium would be transferred to the United States under any peace deal, adding that Washington would help Tehran dig it out from nuclear facilities hit in US strikes last year.

 

"We're going to get it by going in with Iran, with lots of excavators," Trump said in a speech to the conservative Turning Point USA movement in Phoenix, Arizona. "We're going to take it back home to the USA very soon."

 

Meanwhile, Iran's foreign ministry on Friday said the country's stockpile of enriched uranium would not be transferred "anywhere", denying an earlier claim by Trump that the Islamic republic had agreed to hand it over.

 

"Iran's enriched uranium is not going to be transferred anywhere," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei told state TV.

 

"Transfer of Iran's enriched uranium to the US has never been raised in negotiations."

 

Trump posted on his Truth Social platform earlier Friday: "The U.S.A. will get all Nuclear 'Dust,' created by our great B2 Bombers," referring to enriched uranium buried by US strikes last year.

 

But Baqaei said recent talks centred on solving the conflict and not on recovering Iran's uranium.

 

"The previous negotiations focused on the nuclear issue, but now the negotiations are focused on ending the war, and naturally the range of topics discussed has become wider and more diverse," he said.

 

"The 10-point plan for lifting sanctions is very important to us. The issue of compensation for the damages incurred during the imposed war is of particular importance."

 

His comments came after US news outlet Axios reported that Washington and Tehran were negotiating a plan that would include Washington releasing $20 billion in frozen Iranian funds in return for Iran giving up its stockpile of enriched uranium.

 

Tehran still possesses a significant quantity of uranium enriched both to 60 percent, close to the 90-percent level required to make an atomic bomb, as well as a stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent, another critical threshold.

 

Prior to US strikes in June 2025, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) calculated that Iran possessed approximately 440 kilogrammes of uranium enriched to 60 percent, well above the 3.67-percent limit set by a 2015 agreement from which the United States subsequently withdrew.

 

Since June 2025, the fate of this stockpile has remained uncertain, with Tehran refusing access to IAEA inspectors at the sites ravaged by US and Israeli strikes.