Witkoff: Iran a week away from having enough enriched uranium for a bomb

White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff is warning that Iran is about a week away from having enough enriched uranium to create at least one nuclear bomb.

Mr. Witkoff said Tehran has been enriching uranium at up to the 60% level, well beyond the capacity needed for civilian use, as the regime has claimed.

The Islamic republic has not enriched uranium at the 90% “weapons-grade” level, but it has amassed a substantial stockpile of 60% enriched uranium, he said. That’s about 90% of the work required to reach 90% purity, analysts say.

“That’s really dangerous, so we can’t have that,” Mr. Witkoff said Saturday on Fox News Channel’s “My View.”

President Trump wants to know why Iranian leaders are continuing to dig in their heels over developing a nuclear arsenal despite the growing U.S. military presence in the region.

“With the amount of sea power [and] naval power that we have over there, why haven’t they come to us and say, ‘We don’t want a weapon, so here’s what we’re prepared to do?’” Mr. Witkoff said. “Yet it’s hard to get them to that place.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Saturday that Tehran would not bow to international pressure or internal dissent. Despite the obstacles, Mr. Pezeshkian said, Iran has the will and the ability to fight back.

“In the event that it is subjected to military aggression, Iran will respond decisively and proportionally in the exercise of its inherent right of self-defense,” the Iranian president said, according to the government-run Iranian Students’ News Agency. “We will strive for Iran to the very last drop of our blood.”

The U.S. is engaged in one of its largest military buildups in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The buildup includes a massive surge in naval and air assets moving specifically toward the Persian Gulf region.

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier arrived in late January with a full strike group, including multiple guided-missile destroyers. The USS Gerald R. Ford reportedly passed through the Strait of Gibraltar last week. The aircraft carrier is now steaming through the Mediterranean and is expected in the region within two weeks, analysts said.

At least a dozen other warships, including guided-missile destroyers and littoral combat ships, are on station in the event of hostilities.

The U.S. military launched airstrikes on Iran’s fortified nuclear facilities in June to destroy the regime’s atomic infrastructure and slow its progress toward a nuclear weapon.

The White House said the facilities were obliterated, but most experts estimated that the strikes set back Iran’s nuclear program one to two years by destroying specialized centrifuges and physical infrastructure.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he believes Washington and Tehran can still find a diplomatic solution to the impasse.

On Sunday, he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the U.S. military armada forming in the region is counterproductive and won’t force Iran to back down.

“A solution is at our reach, so there is no need for any military buildup,” he said. “A military buildup cannot help it and cannot pressurize us.”

Mr. Araghchi said he expects to meet with his American counterparts Thursday in Geneva.

“I believe that when we meet … we can work on those elements and prepare a good text and come to a fast deal,” he said. “This is my understanding. I see it quite possible.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said any viable deal with Iran must address its ballistic missile program along with its nuclear ambitions.

The Iranian chief diplomat said ballistic missiles are not part of the agenda.

“Right now, we are negotiating only nuclear, and there is no other subject,” Mr. Araghchi said.

Mr. Rubio is reportedly meeting this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the U.S.-Iran nuclear talks, two Trump administration officials told The Associated Press.

The White House insists that Iran’s entire nuclear enrichment program should be dismantled. The Iranian foreign minister said the subject is also a nonstarter.

“Enrichment is our right. We are a member of the [Non-Proliferation Treaty], and we have every right to enjoy peaceful nuclear energy, including enrichment,” Mr. Araghchi said. “How we use this right is something related to us only. The enrichment is a sensitive part of our negotiations.”

Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah, has emerged as an increasingly prominent figure in the wave of mass protests throughout Iran that began late last year and continued into early this year. Mr. Witkoff said he spoke with him at the urging of Mr. Trump.

“The president is interested in hearing everyone’s views. He has no pride of authorship … which I greatly respect, because he’s open to new ideas and new ways of thinking,” the envoy said.

Iranian officials have blamed the U.S. and Israel for the recent wave of anti-government demonstrations around the country.

“Even if the world and powerful states stand against us to force us to bow before them, they should know that we will not bow to these difficulties,” Mr. Pezeshkian said. “Despite all the troubles and platforms that they have created for us, and despite the wounds inflicted upon society, we must heal these wounds.”