Rosatom, Russia’s state atomic energy corporation, says it is ready to move and store Iranian enriched uranium if a deal between Tehran and Washington calls for it. Director General Alexey Likhachev said the agency stands ready to manage the material if such terms are written into a final agreement.
The Kremlin said the same. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated on February 18, 2026 that Moscow has stayed ready to take the enriched material as part of efforts to settle the nuclear dispute. This is a conditional offer tied to a comprehensive deal, not a transfer already agreed.
Where the talks stand
Indirect negotiations between the US and Iran are running through Omani intermediaries, with recent rounds in Oman and Switzerland. They follow the breakdown in relations and the US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Iran’s delegation proposed sending part of its stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% purity to Russia. It also said it could suspend enrichment at home for up to three years. No formal agreement came out of that round, and the talks were described as exploratory.
Negotiators then met in Geneva. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the session ran about three and a half hours and called it constructive. The two sides agreed on “general guiding principles” for continued talks, he said, but major differences remain and a quick conclusion is unlikely. Much of the Geneva discussion covered how Iran’s nuclear activities would be verified and how International Atomic Energy Agency inspections would work. The delegations planned to consult their governments over the next two weeks, then trade draft texts and set a third round.
The enrichment dispute
The main unresolved question is whether Iran can enrich uranium at home. The US administration is reportedly demanding “zero enrichment,” meaning Iran would permanently dismantle its enrichment infrastructure. Washington’s worry is that Iran could produce weapons-grade material if high-level enrichment continues.
Iran has refused. Araghchi and the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran have both said peaceful enrichment is a sovereign right under international law. Tehran says it does not seek nuclear weapons, and it has shown openness to temporary limits or confidence-building steps but not to giving up enrichment for good.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov weighed in on February 19. Forcing Iran to renounce peaceful enrichment altogether, he said, would contradict the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Moscow holds that civilian enrichment is allowed under the treaty as long as it stays under international safeguards.
Iran’s present stockpile includes uranium at 60% purity. That is far above what civilian power generation needs but below weapons-grade, which typically exceeds 90%. The US is meanwhile sending more naval assets toward the Gulf, among them the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group. No official statement ties those deployments to the negotiations.
