Araqchi announced new consultations with Russia on the export of Iranian uranium

Tehran will hold additional consultations with Moscow on the fate of Iran's enriched uranium when the United States and the Islamic Republic return to discussing this issue. This was announced on May 15 at a press conference within the framework of the summit of the foreign ministers of the BRICS countries by the head of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Abbas Araqchi.

Araqchi explained that the issue of the fate of uranium is very complicated and negotiations on it have almost reached an impasse, including due to distrust between Tehran and Washington. The head of the Iranian Foreign Ministry said that the parties had agreed to postpone the detailed study of this issue to the later stages of the final peace agreement. He added that the Russian proposal to export uranium had been worked out both in a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the day before with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

"This is not being discussed at the moment, it is not a subject of negotiations, but we will return to this issue at a later stage. And when we come to this stage, obviously, we will hold additional consultations with Russia and see if the Russian proposal can help or not. <...> We are grateful to our Russian friends for their offer and for their intention to help solve this problem," he said.

War for peace: Iran and the United States are closer to resuming hostilities

Are there any chances for a diplomatic settlement

Earlier in the day, US President Donald Trump said that the United States is ready to conclude a peace agreement with Iran on condition that Tehran stops enriching uranium for 20 years and provides guarantees. Trump added that he "did not like" Iran's first proposal and rejected it because he considered it "unacceptable." He also explained that Tehran first agreed to transfer all the material to Washington, but then abandoned the initiative.

The Iranian Mehr News agency reported at the same time that the US authorities rejected Iran's plan for a possible settlement of the conflict, consisting of 14 points. According to the agency, the Iranian side's proposal was based on a two-stage negotiation process. The first stage involves the end of hostilities. The second stage, if Tehran's conditions are met, implies the start of negotiations on the nuclear issue.