Iran is believed to have over 440 kg of enriched uranium that could be used to make weapons. Despite Trump's promise to turn it into "nuclear dust", Tehran has managed to keep it out of the reach of the United States.
Iran's nuclear program has been a source of tension for decades, with some Iranians today associating words like "yellowcake" (uranium concentrate), "centrifuges" and "enrichment" with crisis, instability and war. The regime's insistence on enriching uranium exposes the country to severe sanctions, with some estimates putting the direct economic damage at around 3 trillion euros.
Now the nuclear program has come back to the fore. The United States seems particularly focused on Iran's nuclear stockpile - Tehran is believed to have over 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%, far more than is needed for civilian purposes. Theoretically, this material can be further enriched to 90% in a relatively short time, making it suitable for use in nuclear weapons.
Will the US and Iran work together to secure the nuclear material?
US President Donald Trump often refers to this material as "nuclear dust" when referring to the 12-day war in 2025, in which he said it was "totally destroyed".
Trump has repeatedly stated that the US will take control of the material, but has given conflicting explanations for exactly how this will happen. Among them is that the US will "come in, along with Iran, with a lot of excavators" to dig it out of the rubble - presumably after a peace agreement is reached. In April, Trump said Iran had agreed to hand over its stockpile, while last week he suggested the US would "take a hit" because "we have to make a trip to Iran to get the nuclear weapon".
Iran has yet to confirm any agreement related to its uranium stockpile. In an interview with the American news channel CBS in March, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that the material remains under the rubble after last year's attack and that Iran has "no program" and "no plan" to recover it. At the same time, Araghchi did not rule out the possibility of diluting highly enriched uranium as part of a future agreement with the US.
Iran's nuclear stockpile unclear
The latest information indicates that Iran is ready to dilute some of its stockpile while transferring the rest to a third country. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said his country is ready to store Iran's enriched uranium. However, it is still unclear where exactly the material is located and what technical challenges must be overcome to access it.
Iran's three main nuclear facilities - Isfahan, Fordow and Natanz - suffered serious damage during last year's Operation Midnight Hammer. The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said in late April 2026 that most of the highly enriched uranium is likely still at the Isfahan nuclear complex. According to him, 18 blue containers, believed to contain about 200 kilograms of enriched uranium, entered a tunnel at the Nuclear Technology Center in Isfahan on June 9, 2025 - just four days before the start of the 12-day war.
However, others offer a different perspective, including speculation that the material is already stored at Fordow or at Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant. Iran has said it would only remove the material under the supervision of the IAEA. "Removing this material from Iran is not technically impossible, but it also depends on many other factors. Under strict IAEA control, the material can be transported and taken out of the country," said Roland Wolf, a physicist and radiation protection specialist. "Special safety measures must be observed. "Because Iran stores its enriched uranium underground, at Fordow, physical access is difficult," he added.
Libya as a model?
The technical challenges of removing more than 440 kilograms of enriched uranium from Iran are only part of the problem, with security issues likely to be even more important.
John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and national security adviser during Trump's first term, pointed to the dismantling of Libya's nuclear program in the early 2000s. He recalled that it was "much smaller" and the removal of the nuclear material in 2003-2004 took place in a "favorable environment", not during a conflict. "American and British officials came and literally packed it up and took it to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where it is today," Bolton said, adding: "I think we could do something similar with Iran's program under favorable conditions, but it would take much longer because it is much more advanced. The most important thing is to prevent highly enriched uranium or other elements of the program from falling into the hands of terrorists or other non-state actors," he added.
The regime's ideology in Iran is "fanatical"
Bolton told DW that the only way to ensure that Iran cannot create nuclear weapons is to "remove the regime of the ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guards."
"Their ideology is fanatical and based on aspirations for dominance within the Islamic community and hegemony in the Middle East. They may make temporary concessions. I wouldn't trust them to honor their commitments in the long term, but it seems that we are moving in that direction," he added.