Clock is ticking on U.S. nuclear proposal to Iran, as Israel mulls military strikes

The clock runs on President Trump’s proposal to Iran to accept restrictions on his nuclear program – and perhaps avoid potential military strike By Israel, which could involve American support.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu radius With Trump on Monday concerning diplomatic efforts and publicly announced that Mr. Trump told him that Iran should answer in the coming days.

Meanwhile, Steve Witkoff, the envoy of the president of the Middle East, plans to hold a sixth round of talks with Iran on Sunday. These discussions will take place in the small state of the Gulf of Oman, according to a familiar source with the plans.

US and Israeli officials have confirmed that diplomatic efforts are still underway, although several US officials say they believe that Israel could prepare an imminent military strike against Iran.

Thursday, the United Nations Vienna Card Dog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that Iran do not comply with nuclear non-proliferation obligations. Iran quickly condemned the conclusion as politically motivated.

The Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Seyed Abbas Arabhchi, in a position on X, accused the United Kingdom, France and Germany, the three major European powers known collectively under the name of E3, of fomented confrontation. The E3 remains a party to the 2015 international nuclear agreement known as the JCPOA. The United States retire agreement in 2018 and Iran partially retired in 2019. European countries which remain partial at the agreement could seek to trigger the Snapback of the UN sanctions against Iran in the coming months.

“Another major strategic error of the E3 will force Iran to react strongly,” said Araghchi in the post.

Trump publicly declared on Truth Social last week that it would not allow Iran to enrich a uranium, but the White House has so far not disclosed the content of the nuclear proposal.

Almost two weeks ago, Witkoff transmitted to Iran via OMANE officials a proposal from the two familiar American sources with the details of this proposal told CBS News that the United States did not want Iran to develop a domestic nuclear fuel enrichment for what it claims to be a civil program. To maintain this limited program, the two sources said that Iran should obtain the nuclear fuel enriched from the outside of the country, rather than enriching it on Iranian soil.

Mr. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed Iran last Wednesday during a long call that lasted more than an hour, according to Mr. Trump’s post on Truth Social. Trump said the time is spending Iran’s decision -making on nuclear weapons.

He said Putin “suggested that he would participate in discussions with Iran” and that he could be useful to conclude the talks. Tehran and Moscow have forged an informal military alliance in Ukraine, Russian forces using Iranian Shahed products to bomb Ukrainian targets, including civilians.

Moscow could play some roles in negotiations with Iran, a source familiar with the proposal explained to CBS News. Russia could be a source of purchase of nuclear fuel by Iran, for example, or it could also be the country receiving the storage of enriched uranium existing by Iran. This would be similar to the role it played in the 2015 International Nuclear Agreement known as the JCPOA.

There are also other ideas offered by the United States. Axios Was first reported that Oman suggested establishing a regional consortium to enrich uranium for civil purposes under surveillance by AIEA and the United States, a familiar source with the proposal indicated that it was one of the ideas presented in Tehran.

During the testimony to a Senate panel on Wednesday, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, asked questions about diplomatic efforts.

“There are many indications that they have evolved towards something that would look a lot like a nuclear weapon,” said Hegseth in response to a question of whether the Teheran nuclear program was peaceful. The powerful president of the Intelligence Committee of the US Senate – the Senator of the GOP Tom Cotton of the Arkansas – seemed to seize this declaration in a position of social media in which he said: “The Iranian terrorist regime is actively working on a nuclear weapon.”

But the American intelligence assesses that Iran interrupted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The American intelligence services also evaluated that Tehran has continued since 2018 to enrich nuclear fuels at levels close to the arms note. Because of this enrichment, American intelligence assesses that Iran is currently a threshold nuclear state, which means that it could decide to continue a weapons program in a relatively short state.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has long been skeptical of diplomatic attempts to restrict Iran’s nuclear program and often underlines the documents stolen by Mossad in 2018 as proof of the Iranian ambition passed to acquire his own nuclear weapon. Netanyahu put pressure on decapitation of his militia Hezbollah and his decimation of Hamas in Gaza.

While Mr. Trump kept the sanction of Russia, which, according to the administration, said it was to disturb diplomatic awareness of Ukraine, he sanctioned Iran in the midst of an attempted diplomacy concerning the nuclear program.

Last Friday, the Treasury Department announced sanctions against 30 people linked to two Iranian brothers who would have helped to whiten billions of dollars through companies before the regime used to help finance its nuclear and missile programs.

CBS News obtained a classified version of a report presented to the Member States by the Director General of IAEA, Rafael Grossi. The report notes that Iran is the only state of non -nuclear weapon in the world that produces and accumulates uranium enriched at 60%, which remains a serious question. Uranium for civil use is enriched at a much lower rate, between 3% and 5%.

Mark Dubowitz, of the American Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told CBS News that the report has proven that “Iran is a serial offender from the [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty]Stonedalling it on his work of nuclear weapons passed – and perhaps in progress. “”

Dubowitz and other pro-Israeli defenders stimulate alarms and argue that the Iranian regime should not have the right to enrich uranium on its soil.

The director general of the AIEA also reiterated in his report his call for Iran to cooperate with the IAEA inspections – or to risk “the agency will not be able to guarantee that the Iran nuclear program is exclusively peaceful”.

Israel has an undeclared nuclear weapon program, and AIEA does not have access to its installations at Dimona, which should provide fuel for its arms program. IAEA monitors the site called Soreq. At this stage, Israel maintains a strategic advantage as the only nuclear power in the Middle East.