Witkoff sends mixed messages on Iranian nuclear enrichment

The Trump administration’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, who is leading U.S. nuclear talks with Iran, again suggested on Monday that the U.S. is willing to allow Iran to maintain some level of nuclear enrichment, as it did during the original 2015 nuclear deal. Jason Brodsky, the policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran, told JI that allowing Iran to continue enriching uranium to 3.67% “would enable” Iran to “extort the United States,” and said that Trump should remain consistent on insisting on full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program. Brodsky said that allowing Iran to enrich to 3.67% was the “original sin” of the JCPOA “and that set the table for the situation that we’re in today.” “We need to learn the lessons of the past,” Brodsky said. “The JCPOA framework failed … It’s a flawed, fundamentally failed framework of dealing with the Iranian issue.” Brodsky praised one element of Witkoff’s original Fox comments: limits on Iran’s missile program. The lack of provisions relating to the missile program “was one of the flaws of the original JCPOA,” Brodsky said. “But also there are a lot of other questions regarding sanctions relief and mechanisms to prevent Iran from using sanctions relief … under any deal from funding its malign behavior in the region,” Brodsky continued.