A fifth round of nuclear talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff concluded in Rome last week with “some but not conclusive” progress, the talks’ Omani mediator said.
The primary sticking point remains Iran’s enrichment capacity. Iran has long maintained that it has a legal right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a claim that the United States has consistently rejected. According to Washington’s interpretation, the NPT does not confer an explicit right to enrichment. The United States is now demanding that Iran completely give up its enrichment program, but this is a maximalist demand that Iran will not accept.
Araghchi, who leads Iran’s talks with the United States, recently reaffirmed his country’s position when he said that while a deal to ensure that Iran would not have nuclear weapons was “within reach,” enrichment “will continue with or without a deal.” While speaking about U.S. demands on May 20, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—Iran’s supreme leader—said that “no one in Iran is waiting for their permission. The Islamic Republic has its own policies and direction—and it will stick to them.”
On the American side there are two factions, but both are united in a refusal to allow Iran its domestic enrichment capacity. Witkoff, who had previously hinted that Washington could accept a limited enrichment capacity, reversed his position on May 18 when he said that the United States “cannot allow even 1 percent of an enrichment capability.”
Trump administration officials have suggested that Washington could accept a civilian nuclear program in Iran—as long as there was no enrichment. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in April that “if Iran wants a civil nuclear program, they can have one just like many other countries in the world”—one in which “they import enriched material.”
But even though this position marks a clear departure from 1990s, when the U.S. officials rejected any nuclear programs in Iran—even for civilian purposes—it still won’t lead to the agreement that both sides want. That’s because Iran’s stance on owning the full nuclear fuel cycle predates the Islamic Republic. In fact, it was this very point that has led to the enduring standoff between Iran and the United States.
In the 1970s, the Shah of Iran—then a close U.S. ally—poured Tehran’s massive oil revenues into an ambitious nuclear program. In June 1974, Iran signed a $4 billion deal with France to construct five 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactors, scheduled for completion by 1985. In November of the same year, Iran signed a contract with the West German company Kraftwerk Union, for the construction of two 1,200-megawatt light water reactors (Iran I and Iran II) in Bushehr. The terms of this agreement stipulated that once the reactors were completed, Iran—in consultation with West Germany—would build fuel reprocessing installations.
While Iranians expressed interest in purchasing reactors from the United States as well, negotiations with Washington were far more difficult. After India’s Peaceful Nuclear Explosion” in May 1974, Washington tightened controls on the export of sensitive technologies to developing countries, including Iran. Ironically, India conducted its test while U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Chair Dixy Lee Ray was visiting Tehran to discuss nuclear cooperation and the training of Iranian scientists.
American officials grew increasingly uneasy about what might happen if a hostile regime succeeded the shah. A June 1974 memorandum to Defense Secretary James Schlesinger warned that “[i]f Iran were to seek a weapons capability … the annual plutonium production from the planned 20,000 MW Iranian nuclear power program will be equivalent to 600-700 warheads.”
The Americans were also concerned about the shah’s true intentions. In October 1977, CIA psychiatrist Jerrold Post warned in a top secret memorandum—reviewed by the author—that the agency lacked confidence about the shah’s commitments concerning nuclear weapons. By 1978, the Iranian military, under the supervision of a general, was discreetly pursuing nuclear weapons-related research.
The core dispute between Tehran and Washington centered on plutonium reprocessing—the chemical extraction of plutonium from spent nuclear fuel, which could then be used in developing nuclear weapons. The United States pressed its close ally, the shah, to demonstrate “statesmanship” on the world stage by abandoning plans for national reprocessing and accepting a U.S. veto over how Iran could manage the spent fuel from American-supplied reactors.
This demand posed a significant dilemma for Tehran. As Akbar Etemad—the Shah’s nuclear chief and the father of Iran’s nuclear program—argued in an interview years later, “We could not work with the Americans because they told us that if you buy the fuel from us… we must consent to what you do with the spent fuel.” Known as the “right of prior consent,” this condition would have restricted Iran from reprocessing even its own spent fuel—regardless of whether it came from a U.S.-made reactor. From the perspective of the Iranians, such constraints violated their country’s national sovereignty and had to be resisted.
Iranian officials, including Etemad and the shah himself, framed the issue of national reprocessing as both a legal entitlement and a matter of national sovereignty. In their negotiations with the United States, Iranian officials asserted that the NPT guaranteed access to the full spectrum of peaceful nuclear technology, “including reprocessing”—a position that the United States rejected.
Nuclear nationalism also played a role in Tehran’s intransigence in nuclear talks. Etemad succinctly captured this when he asserted publicly that “no country should think they have the right to dictate nuclear policy to another.” The shah was equally blunt: “You are asking us for safeguards that are incompatible with our sovereignty,” he had complained to U.S. officials.
Despite the disagreements over the purchase of reactors, which U.S. officials said had become a “serious irritant” in bilateral relations, Washington—sensitive to shah’s views—attempted to mitigate his concerns over the perceived discriminatory attitude. In a November 1975 telegram, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger instructed Richard Helms, then the U.S. ambassador to Iran, to convey to the Iranians that the United States was “not in any way singling Iran out for special, disadvantageous treatment.” Even when the Ford administration offered to soften the language—replacing the demand for “veto rights” with a request for a “rigorously safeguarded” program—Iran still refused.
Tehran also rejected a U.S. proposal to establish a multinational reprocessing center in Iran, citing poor relations with neighboring states. Notably, Kissinger later reversed course on the idea of multinational reprocessing centers, calling it a “fraud.” The Ford administration ultimately failed to reach an agreement with Iran because of Tehran’s strong opposition to U.S. demands.
Nonetheless, in February 1977, Iran ultimately agreed to scale back its demands on reprocessing in exchange for the United States granting it “most favored nation” status—ensuring that Iran received equal treatment in nuclear cooperation as other U.S. partners. Although an agreement was finally signed in July 1978 for the sale of nuclear reactors, it was never implemented due to the political turmoil that culminated in the shah’s overthrow in February 1979.
What followed was not the end of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but their transformation—recast under a new regime with similar goals and with a touch of anti-imperialism.
When the Islamic Republic inherited the shah’s nuclear program, it initially paused and curtailed its activities. But before long, it resumed the effort in 1982—ultimately pursuing a path that mirrored the ambitions of its predecessor. Against the expectations of many, Iran achieved uranium enrichment capacity by the summer of 1999 and has steadily expanded it ever since. It has sought to use its nuclear program as a bargaining chip to get economic and trade concessions from the West.
It took the United States a long time to recognize that what it was asking for from Iran was not feasible. The Clinton administration categorically rejected any nuclear program in Iran, with Secretary of State Warren Christopher asserting in May 1995 that “we think the entire [Iranian] nuclear program should be brought to an end.”
Later, President George W. Bush’s national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, admitted that the United States would have to concede to some nuclear program in the country, albeit one with zero enrichment. It was only when President Barack Obama recognized that the United States could not demand zero enrichment, let alone zero nuclear program, that a diplomatic solution could finally be found.
Yet some hard-line figures in Washington, D.C., including recently ousted National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Sen. Lindsey Graham, are persisting in calls for a full dismantlement of the Iranian nuclear program—the so called Libya model—echoing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demands. From Tehran’s perspective, agreeing to such terms would amount to nothing short of unconditional surrender, and almost certainly will be rejected.
Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader, has long cited the case of former Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi—who relinquished his nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief—as a cautionary tale. “Qaddafi collected all his nuclear equipment on the heels of empty threats,” Khamenei said during a 2011 sermon, “loaded it onto a ship and handed it over the Westerners, saying to them: ‘Take it.’ Then they decided to attack Libya and take their oil.”
To Iran’s leadership, such demands reflect a broader strategy aimed at regime change, not genuine nonproliferation. At home, despite popular support for a deal, agreeing to such terms would also carry immense political costs for a regime that has long portrayed its nuclear program as a national right—one even more significant than the 1951 oil nationalization.
Like the monarchy that preceded it, the Islamic Republic has shown little willingness to capitulate on the principle of access to the full nuclear fuel cycle. Iran’s nuclear program and technological capacity are facts on the ground. If the goal of the Trump administration is to keep Tehran from crossing the nuclear weapons threshold, then the smart strategy is not capitulation demands, but diplomacy anchored in verification and reciprocal compromise.
Iran has signaled its readiness to accept caps on enrichment in exchange for meaningful sanctions relief. That’s the basis of a durable deal—not a one-sided unconditional surrender.
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