Witkoff Says U.S. Open to Compromise Ahead of Iran Nuclear Talks
Preventing ‘weaponization’ by Tehran is White House’s ’red line,’ says Trump’s special envoy to Middle East
April 11, 2025 2:37 pm ET
An Iranian nuclear-research reactor in Tehran. Photo: Vahid Salemi/Associated Press
WASHINGTON—U.S.
special envoy Steve Witkoff said the Trump administration’s “red line”
with Iran is to stop it from being able to produce a nuclear weapon, a
potential overture to Tehran ahead of high-stakes talks this weekend.
Any
deal that allows the Iranian nuclear program to continue in some form
would amount to a retreat for the administration and fall short of
Israel’s insistence that a credible agreement must include
U.S.-supervised destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Witkoff, who will lead the talks Saturday in Oman for the U.S., told The Wall Street Journal that the administration’s opening demand would be that Tehran eliminate its nuclear program, but he conceded that compromises might be needed to reach a deal.
“I
think our position begins with dismantlement of your program. That is
our position today,” Witkoff said, summing up his message to Iranian
officials. “That doesn’t mean, by the way, that at the margin we’re not
going to find other ways to find compromise between the two countries.”
“Where our red line will be, there can’t be weaponization of your nuclear capability,” Witkoff added.
The
envoy’s comments open a window into top-level thinking within the Trump
administration and highlight the difficult choices it is likely to face
in the coming months as it considers whether military force will be
needed to rein in Iran’s nuclear program or if diplomacy will suffice.
If
Iran refuses to eliminate its nuclear program, Witkoff said, he would
take the issue to President Trump to determine how to proceed,
potentially confronting the White House with a hard choice about how
much of Iran’s nuclear activities it could tolerate.
Steve Witkoff, special envoy to the Middle East Photo: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg News
Some
analysts say that pressing for the total elimination of Iran’s program
is a prescription for a deadlock and potentially a military conflict.
“The
Trump administration is in a good position to negotiate a strong deal,
one that can verifiably prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons for a
significant period of time,” said Robert Einhorn, a former State
Department nonproliferation official. “But it shouldn’t overplay its
hand.”
Iran
has long balked at demands that it completely dismantle its nuclear
program, which it claims is for peaceful purposes and not aimed at
producing a nuclear device. A compromise that enabled it to enrich
uranium with international inspections was central to the 2015 accord
Tehran reached with the U.S. and other world powers.
Trump
pulled out of the 2015 agreement during his first term and imposed
punishing sanctions, insisting that Iran stop all uranium enrichment and
development of missiles that could carry nuclear warheads. Iran endured
the sanctions and has expanded its nuclear work and missile production.
Iranian
officials say they want an easing of economic sanctions and the
restoration of business ties with the U.S. But they have warned that
U.S. military action would prompt Iran to stop cooperating with
international inspectors and move nuclear material to hidden sites.
“We
neither prejudge nor predict,” Esmaeil Baqaei, a spokesman for Iran’s
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Friday ahead of the talks. “We plan to
assess the intentions and seriousness of the other side on Saturday and
adjust our next moves accordingly.”
Witkoff
said the initial meeting “is about trust building. It is about talking
about why it is so important for us to get to a deal, not the exact
terms of the deal.”
Any agreement, Witkoff has said, would require substantial verification measures to ensure Iran isn’t working on a bomb.
Trump
has said that the face-to-face negotiations are necessary for sealing a
deal. Iranian officials have said the initial talks would be indirect,
with Omani officials mediating between the two sides. Witkoff said he
hopes to resolve that issue and “set the parameters” for future talks.
U.S.
officials say Iran could produce some kind of nuclear weapon in a few
months. But American intelligence officials told Congress last month
that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hasn’t made a
decision to build a bomb.
To
do so, Iran needs an enrichment program for producing fissile material,
which it has already developed. Iran would also need to produce a
warhead using that material, a technically complicated process.
Iran
is the only nonnuclear weapons country that produces 60% highly
enriched uranium, which can be easily converted into weapons-grade
fissile material to make a nuclear bomb.
Trump’s
national security adviser, Mike Waltz, has said that nothing less than
“full dismantlement” of Iran’s nuclear program and its separate effort
to produce missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads would satisfy
Trump.
“Iran
has to give up its program in a way that the entire world can see,”
Waltz said on CBS’s “Face The Nation” last month. “That is enrichment.
That is weaponization, and that is its strategic missile program…Give it
up or there will be consequences.”
Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who met with Trump on Monday and has
warned that a “military option” might be required with Iran, said a
deal should include the elimination of its enrichment sites under
American supervision.
But
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, a veteran of past nuclear
negotiations who will be leading the Iranian team, has rejected the idea
of completely eliminating its program. “The United States can only
dream,” he said Sunday in an interview with Iran’s state-run
parliamentary news agency.
Iran has suffered repeated blows to its security over the past two years, with the defeat of its allies
and militia proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. Israeli strikes last
year on air-defense sites and other targets have left Iran more
vulnerable to direct attacks.
Its
economy is under pressure from sanctions, a message the Trump
administration has sought to drive home in recent days by imposing new
sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program and foreign companies involved in
shipping Iranian oil.
The
battering that Iran-backed proxies have suffered in the region might
also have strengthened Tehran’s resolve to preserve much of its nuclear
program.
Ali
Shamkhani, a top aide to Khamenei, said on X Thursday that if Iran’s
foes continue to threaten military action, Tehran might take what he
called deterrence measures, possibly including moving its uranium
stockpiles to “secure locations.”
Write to Josh Dawsey at Joshua.Dawsey@WSJ.com, Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com and Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com