Iran plans to enrich uranium with UAE and Saudi Arabia for a nuclear consortium in the Middle East to overcome United States objections to continuing its enrichment program. The proposal is viewed as a strategy to ensure support from Gulf states for Iran’s stance to restrain enrichment capabilities.
The proposal would give neighboring countries access to its technological knowledge and would make them stakeholders. Although it is uncertain if Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi made the proposal during three-house talks with the US in Oman, according to reports, the proposal is circulating in Tehran. Araghchi, after the talks, flew to Dubai, where he spoke to Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the foreign minister of the UAE, about enriching uranium for its nuclear program.
Moreover, the consortium would be based on the original 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers, providing Iranian facilities with enrichment returned to 3.67% levels. The deal was unilaterally ended by Donald Trump in 2018. Even though the United States demanded that Iran halt enrichment and demolish all its nuclear facilities, Trump has not made any decision on it and compliments Iran’s seriousness in the talks.
Former Iranian nuclear negotiator Seyed Hossain Mousavian first proposed the idea of a consortium along with Princeton physicist Frank Von Hipple in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ article of October 2023, long before the current Tehran-Washington talks. The idea is that Saudi Arabia would be funders and shareholders of the Iranian nuclear program and gain access to Iran’s technology.
The involvement of these Gulf states would serve as assurance that the nuclear program of Iran is entirely for civil purposes and not for building nuclear bombs, as Israel claims. If Saudi and UAE engineers were allowed to monitor Iran’s nuclear program, it would provide an additional layer of oversight beyond UN (United Nations) inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran’s gradual departure from the enrichment and stockpile limits as planned in the original 2015 deal is blamed on Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement. The US initially aimed for an agreement with Iran within 2 months of talks starting. However, due to the growing complexity of the agreement and its technical aspects, the talk might expand through the summer.
Additionally, Iran is enriching uranium to 60% purity, which is significantly higher than the 3.67% limit in the 2015 deal and close to the 90% needed for weapons-grade materials. But according to Marco Rubio, US secretary of state, has said that this enrichment level is significantly higher than necessary for civilian purposes, referencing Badr Al Busaidi, Omani foreign minister, quote, “useful and original ideas reflecting a shared wish to reach an honorable agreement.
However, the UAE has the first fully operating Arab civil nuclear power plant, named “Barakah,” situated west of Abu Dhabi, which is capable of producing a quarter of UAE’s electricity needs.
