Witkoff Says Iran Was Deceptive on Nuclear, ‘Pretending to Negotiate’ in Lead-Up to U.S.-Israeli Strikes

U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff said Tuesday that the Iranian regime was merely “pretending to negotiate” in the lead up to the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, as negotiators were all the while lying about the country’s nuclear program.

Witkoff detailed three meetings he and envoy Jared Kushner had with Iranian negotiators in Oman and Switzerland during a recent appearance on The Mark Levin Show.

“Jared and I from almost the go were suspect as to whether they would do the type of deal that would be acceptable to President Trump,” Witkoff said. “And we turned out, I think, to be right.”

That Witkoff considered the negotiations to be fruitless is significant considering the conciliatory reputation he’s developed as President Trump’s chief negotiator. The former real estate developer, who played a key role in negotiating the release of Israeli hostages with Hamas, speaks often about the importance of understanding your adversary’s priorities and making concessions to demonstrate good faith.

Witkoff recalled the first negotiations in Muscat, where Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi “laid down the marker” very early on by saying enrichment is considered by Iranian leadership to be Iran’s “inalienable right.”

The Iranian negotiators were talking about all of the enriched uranium they had been stockpiling — close to 10,000 kilograms, including 460 kilograms of 60 percent enriched material. Ninety percent enriched material is needed for a bomb; it would take a week to ten days to reach the 90 percent mark from 60 percent. The material also included some 8,000 kilograms of enriched material at 3.67 percent and another 1,000 kilograms at 20 percent.

“It’s an obvious concern to us,” he said, adding that Araghchi “knew it.”

“He said to us, ‘You know, and I know, and the Europeans know, because they attest to it, that that’s eleven bombs. So that’s why this material is so important to you,’” Witkoff said, adding that the Iranians were “proud” that they held the enriched material, describing it as “something of a trophy” for them.

Witkoff said the 24,000 pounds of enriched uranium “was never intended to be used … for civil purposes.”

“It could only be stockpiled in a move towards weaponization,” he said. 

He said Araghchi, as the lead negotiator, told Witkoff and Kushner, “We will not give you at the negotiating table what you could not win militarily.”

Witkoff said even Hamas negotiators were “in some respects, more reasonable than these guys.”

“If they profess that they have no bad intentions here, if they profess that they no longer possess the ability to enrich, if that is truly and genuinely how they feel, then why would they need the material?” he asked. “They should hand it over as an act of goodness, and that would set the tone for how this negotiation would be. And I think that you would see President Trump as the sort of man who would acknowledge that, right?”

The meetings that followed were filled with lapsed deadlines and unkept promises on the Iranians’ behalf, Witkoff said.

After the first meeting, the two sides were “wide apart.” The Americans had hoped the Iranians would appear at the second meeting with concrete proposals, “but it was nothing like that.” The second meeting ended with an agreement for the Iranians to send over an agreement five to six days later. Instead, the agreement was never presented until the third meeting, at which point the Iranians presented Witkoff and Kushner with a proposal, but would not allow them to take it out of the negotiating room to be reviewed by American experts at the CIA or Department of Defense.

At the third meeting, the U.S. discovered that the Iranians “weren’t just hiding what they were doing with enrichment. They weren’t just hiding what they were doing with their ballistic assets, which they’re very, very good at making, but they were disguising a research and development program from a nuclear standpoint, and that they sold as being helpful to their people.”

Iran had been hiding what the Tehran Research Reactor was actually doing, Witkoff said. 

The world believed that TRR was enriching uranium at 20 percent “because they were genuinely producing radioisotopes for the betterment of Iranian society,” Witkoff said, with radioisotopes able to be used for making medicines, cancer research, agricultural research, etc.

However, in reading the agreement Iran presented in the third meeting, the U.S. discovered Iran wanted to open other research reactors and that the country was claiming they had consumed all of their fuel at TRR, when evidence from the International Atomic Energy Agency showed it actually had enough fuel to run the reactor for the next seven or eight years.

“By labeling it a research reactor, they got to begin enrichment at 20 percent with no intention of using it for radioisotopes,” Witkoff said. “They did an experiment here or there to sort of keep up the deception. But basically, they were enriching at 20 and why? Because maybe it’s a month and a half from 20 to 90, which is weapons grade. At 60 percent, it’s a week to ten days. But 20 gives you a big head start over 3.67.”

Witkoff said the proposal for research reactors was clear “subterfuge.”

“There was no mistaking it,” he said.

When called out by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi at the negotiating table for the apparent lie about the nuclear fuel stockpile, the Iranians “really didn’t have an answer,” Witkoff said.

As a last-ditch effort at negotiation, the U.S. offered for Iran to run a program with no enrichment for 10 years, where all of the fuel would be supplied by outside purveyors for civil purposes.

Witkoff and Kushner said they would have to run the proposal by Trump, but that, if approved, the U.S. would pay for the fuel. The Iranians rejected the plan, he said, saying, “We don’t need your money, and we don’t need our dignity to be assaulted by you suggesting you need to pay something for us.”

“Which essentially meant we have no desire to run a civil nuclear program because everything is about disguising what our real motivations are, enriching and have the flexibility to enrich,” Witkoff said. 

The U.S. and Israel carried out long-awaited strikes on Iran on Saturday. Trump told the New York Post on Monday that the operation is “way ahead of schedule,” with 49 Iranian leaders confirmed dead, including Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

While there are currently no U.S. boots on the ground in Iran, both Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have declined to rule out the potential for a ground invasion.

“This is not Iraq. This is not endless,” Hegseth said.

“No stupid rules of engagement, no nation building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win, and we don’t waste time or lives,” he added.

Hegseth did, however, stipulate that the U.S. would go “as far as we need to go” to ensure that Iran’s conventional and nuclear military capabilities are completely neutralized.