00:00Iran's foreign ministry has insisted on its right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes,
00:06but they have said the level is actually negotiable.
00:11Is this something the U.S. is likely to accept?
00:15Well, this is the issue, Leanne.
00:17This is the sticking point right now in this entire negotiation.
00:20This and the Strait of Hormones have been the two things we've heard of since the get-go.
00:23And I think right now the answer to that is, in the way that Iran is framing it,
00:27no, the U.S. are not going to accept it.
00:29They've been pretty clear about this from the get-go.
00:31They don't just want limits.
00:33They want this long-term halt.
00:35In fact, they actually want a total restriction on enrichment at all.
00:39So reports from Washington saying that they've pushed for a 20-year suspension,
00:43and Iran have rejected that, saying that it's too extreme.
00:45They've said five years.
00:48I think we'll probably see something like a meat in the middle.
00:51This could be similar to the 2015 Obama deal, really.
00:54Iran said that it wants to hold on to what it says is a sovereign right to enrich uranium.
00:59I'm really hard-pressed to find online anywhere where it's a sovereign right for any country to enrich uranium.
01:05But it signals there's a bit of flexibility.
01:07And I think that's good.
01:08That's good music to put out there because of what level they'll actually get to as well.
01:12Now, we've talked about the enrichment of uranium in the past before.
01:15And we know that Iran had been at 60% enriched uranium.
01:18And they need that to be much more enriched to use it for weapons.
01:21But nobody's enriching uranium past 50% for energy purposes.
01:24So the argument that we need this for the energy of our country simply is not going to float, I
01:29think, in Washington, to be honest.
01:31But they're saying that they're not going to give up.
01:33They're saying that there'll be a bargain on this, but they're not going to say what exactly that is.
01:37But I think if there is a deal, like I said, somewhere in the middle is likely where it's going
01:41to go.
01:41So the U.S. is not going to say, OK, unrestricted, enrich uranium as much as you want.
01:46Iran is definitely not going to accept zero enrichment.
01:48So the only viable outcome is this limited and very, very heavily monitored enrichment.
01:54And there has to be a strict cap.
01:55There has to be a strict timeline in place as well.
01:57I mean, we've seen versions of this in the past before on nuclear agreements as well.
02:01So enrichment would be allowed.
02:03But enrichment would be very, very tightly controlled.
02:06This is the issue, is trust.
02:08It's going to come down to trust because the U.S. and its allies are worried about how quickly this
02:12can actually be scaled up to weapons grade.
02:14So Iran's existing stockpile is already there.
02:16We know they already have 60 percent.
02:18When we spoke about this before the show, you said Russia are not going to take that enriched uranium off
02:21them.
02:22So they'll likely be allowed to keep that unless that's part of the negotiation.
02:25So in simple terms, I guess, Iran is going to keep the negotiations alive.
02:30It's still very far from what the U.S. wants.
02:32And I think we're a bit away from that.
02:33The talks collapsed last weekend because of that.
02:36So the issue, if they can ultimately fix that in the next couple of days, that will decide whether or
02:40not a deal actually happens.
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