Special Envoy Steve Witkoff told Fox News on Monday that Tehran's insistence on a "inalienable right to enrich its nuclear fuel" and its assertion that it had "evaded oversight protocols" to stockpile 460 kg, probably enough to construct 11 nuclear weapons, set off the combined US-Israel attack on Iran.
According to Witkoff, the United States wanted three things from negotiations in Geneva last month: Tehran's nuclear and ballistic missile program to be shut down, backing for armed proxies like Hezbollah to be withdrawn, and its naval forces to be eliminated "so we can have freedom of the seas."

However, he claimed that Iranian negotiators "made it clear to us their goal is to maintain enrichment for purpose of armament." "The Iranians openly and honestly informed us that they possess 460 kg of uranium that has been refined to 60%. They knew they could produce eleven nuclear weapons.According to the Israeli newspaper The Times of Israel, Witkoff said, "We replied that the President (Donald Trump) feels we have the inalienable right to stop you dead in your tracks."

He claimed that Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, informed the President that reaching a deal with Iran would be challenging, if not impossible. "We tried to make a fair deal… it was very, very clear it was going to be impossible, probably by the end of the second meeting."
Vice President JD Vance stated in June 2025 that a 400 kg stockpile was missing after Washington fired six "bunker buster" bombs to "completely and totally obliterate" three Iranian nuclear sites, according to Trump. The US Special Envoy did not disclose details.
The facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan were the targets of the bombs.At that point, according to Vance, the "missing" stockpile had increased by 60%.
Iran allegedly transported the uranium, some of which was kept deep underground at the Fordow site, covertly in order to utilize it as a negotiating tool for upcoming US negotiations, according to reports (The New York Times quoted anonymous Israeli officials).
For uranium to be utilized in a nuclear bomb, it must be 90% enriched.Iran's stockpile, which the US claims to have, will need to be further enriched within a week to ten days. But where this might occur if Trump was telling the truth last year is the question.
Vance's "smell test"
This week, JD Vance stated that Iran "did not pass the smell test," which is why negotiations failed."Nobody objects to the Iranians being able to build medical isotopes; the objection is these enrichment facilities that are only useful for building a nuclear weapon," he stated to Fox News.Saying "you want enrichment for medical isotopes" while attempting to construct a facility 70 to 80 feet below the surface doesn't pass the smell test," the vice president stated.Tehran has consistently stated that it has no interest in pursuing a weapons agenda and that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful, civilian, and medical uses. Inspectors from the international nuclear energy watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency, however, are still dubious of these assertions.

Israel repeats the US position
In an interview with NDTV on Monday, Israel's Foreign Affairs Minister Gideon Sa'ar claimed that Iran had "wasted time" in recent negotiations with the United States by transferring important components of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, technologies, and resources to more subterranean installations, which are now so deep that neither Israel nor the United States can successfully attack them from the air.
"Those who conduct the negotiations, the Americans themselves, concluded that Iran, as usual, is wasting time, i.e., not meeting American red lines with regard to the nuclear programme... with regard to the ballistic missiles programme," Sa'ar stated.The US and Israel then unleashed a torrent of missiles and "one-way attack" drones on many sites in Tehran on Saturday afternoon, including the complex of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the city center. Iran verified Khamenei's death in the incident a few hours later.
Iran retaliated with a similar onslaught that targeted American military installations and embassies around West Asia, Tel Aviv and other parts of Israel, as well as civilian and energy infrastructure in neighboring nations, such as a luxury hotel in Dubai and an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia.Particularly since Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, which is used to ship an average of 20 million barrels of crude oil every day, the exchange has threatened to lure other West Asian nations into a regional conflict that might have disastrous effects on the world's energy supplies.