Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, has announced that Iran must totally eliminate its nuclear program, seeming to reverse the policy he had articulated on Fox News only 12 hours earlier, which would have allowed Iran to enrich uranium at a low level for civilian use.
The switch to a more hardline policy is likely to make it much harder for the US to reach a negotiated agreement with Tehran, bringing back the threat of an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.
In a further change, it was agreed that the next round of indirect US-Iran talks, due to start on Saturday, will continue to be in Oman and the venue will not switch to Italy as proposed by the US.
In a statement posted to social media on Tuesday, Witkoff said: ‘A deal with Iran will only be completed if it is a Trump deal. Any final arrangement must set in place a framework for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East – meaning that Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program. It is imperative for the world that we create a tough fair deal that will endure, and that is what President Trump has asked me to do.’
The previous day, on Fox News, the special envoy had said, ‘the conversation with the Iranians’ would concern uranium enrichment at 3.67% for civil nuclear purposes.
‘In some circumstances they are enriching at 60% and at others at 20%. That cannot be,’ he stated. ‘You do not need to run, as they claim, a civil nuclear program where you are enriching past 3.67%. This is going to be much about verification on the enrichment program and then ultimately verification on weaponization – that includes the type of missiles they have stockpiled there and the trigger for a bomb.’
Witkoff’s two positions are hard to reconcile unless he is trying to distinguish between an interim deal that reduces Iranian uranium enrichment to civilian levels and a final agreement that eliminates its nuclear program entirely.
It is also possible that Trump has faced a backlash from Iran hawks who warned that Witkoff’s negotiating stance was largely re-establishing the nuclear deal that Barack Obama had agreed with Iran in 2015, from which Trump withdrew the US in 2018, claiming it was unenforceable.
Witkoff’s apparent volte-face may also be seen as another example of chaotic foreign policymaking, in which the administration battles behind the president’s back and he either does not focus on the policy details or does not understand the choices he is allowing to be made on his behalf.
Witkoff, a man with no diplomatic experience, was charged with producing diplomatic breakthroughs in Gaza, Ukraine, and Iran and has always portrayed himself as nothing more than Trump’s messenger.
He would have thought the proposals he aired in the weekend talks in Oman and on Fox News were those of the president.
Iran has repeatedly demanded the right to maintain a civil nuclear program, meaning that the latest iteration of US thinking will cause consternation in Tehran and could strengthen hardliners, who maintain that the US cannot be trusted.
A rare consensus had developed in Tehran that the talks between Witkoff and the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, could result in some US sanctions being lifted as part of the most positive development in relations between Iran and the US in a decade.
The head of the UN nuclear inspectorate, Rafael Grossi, is due to visit Iran this week to see if progress can be made on improving his inspectors’ access to Iran’s nuclear sites.
image source from：https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/15/trump-envoy-steve-witkoff-demands-iran-eliminate-nuclear-programme
