Iran tells Moscow it will keep every gram of its enriched uranium, closing one of the few exits from the war

Iran has shut the door on the idea of shipping its enriched uranium out of the country, one of the few concrete proposals for ending a war now in its ninth month.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Iran “will not remove a single atom of enriched nuclear material”. In an interview with Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen television, released on Wednesday, he said Tehran had informed Moscow of the decision and intended to use the material itself, saying it was needed for nuclear-powered ships and submarines.

Rezaei met President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on 5 November. Russia has previously offered to take Iran’s enriched uranium as part of a possible settlement, while saying the choice was Tehran’s.

Why does the stockpile matter so much?

Because it is the heart of the dispute. Before the United States and Israel struck three major Iranian nuclear sites in June 2025, the IAEA estimated Iran had 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 per cent, a short technical step from the roughly 90 per cent used in weapons. By the IAEA’s own yardstick, that is enough for around 10 bombs if enriched further.

Inspectors have not been able to verify how much of it survived or where it is stored. Moving it out of Iran, to Russia or elsewhere, would have been the clearest way to settle that question. Rezaei made a similar pledge on 20 October, but Wednesday’s comments add that Moscow has been formally told.

Are the two sides talking at all?

Not according to Rezaei. He said there were no negotiations with the United States and dismissed reports of a recent meeting in Qatar as “pure lies”. He also warned that any new US attack would be met with strikes on American bases far from Iran, including sites not previously targeted.

In Washington the tone is that the fighting is winding down. President Trump said on 9 November that the war was “effectively over” in military terms, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after a G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Paris on 10 November that the economic campaign against Iran meant there was no need for major combat operations.

The issues still open are the ones that matter most: Iran’s nuclear program, the US naval blockade of Iranian ports, and the safety of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

What does it mean for Australia?

The Strait of Hormuz carries a large share of the world’s oil, and Australia imports most of the refined fuel it uses. Every sign that a settlement is further away keeps risk priced into crude, and that flows through to what Australians pay at the bowser. A deal on the uranium was one of the steps that could have eased that pressure; Tehran has now ruled it out.