March 11, 2026
Less than 48 hours before the U.S. and Israeli coordinated strikes on Iran began on Feb. 28, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva for a third round of Omani-mediated talks aimed at reaching a nuclear agreement.
Despite Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi’s assessment that the United States and Iran made “substantial progress” toward a nuclear deal during the Feb. 26 talks and the agreement to meet again on March 2 for technical talks, Trump said he was “not happy” with the progress or the “way they’re negotiating.” The following day, the United States and Israel illegally attacked Iran, using Tehran’s nuclear program as one justification for the attack.
By the time the third round of talks ended in Geneva, Trump had likely already made the decision to go to war. It is unlikely that any outcome short of complete Iranian capitulation to U.S. demands at the negotiating table would have averted the strikes.
But Trump’s dissatisfaction and impatience with the negotiating process appear to have been fed, in part, by Witkoff and Kushner’s accounts of the U.S.-Iran talks. Comments made by Witkoff in two background briefings with reporters on Feb. 28 and March 3, as well as media appearances since the strikes began, made clear that Witkoff did not have sufficient technical expertise or diplomatic experience to engage in effective diplomacy. His lack of knowledge and mischaracterization of Iran’s positions and nuclear program throughout the process likely informed Trump’s assessment that talks were not progressing and Iran was not negotiating seriously.
The Arms Control Association received recordings and/or transcripts from several participants in the Feb. 28 and March 3 briefings. The Arms Control Association has not seen a copy of the Iranian proposal from the Feb. 26 talks but has heard descriptions of it from officials familiar with the contents. The description coincides with media reports: after a multi-year pause on uranium enrichment, Iran would resume an enrichment program based on fueling its planned reactors. Iran would not accumulate enriched uranium gas and agree to broad International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) oversight. The scope of the enrichment program was based on what was likely an overly ambitious ten-year reactor plan and included enriching uranium up to 20 percent with a prescribed number of advanced centrifuges.
The Iranian proposal, as presented on Feb. 26, did not meet the maximalist terms that the White House demanded, including no enrichment, dismantlement of Iran's nuclear facilities, and removal of enriched uranium gas from Iran. Nor did it appear to be sufficiently restrictive from a nonproliferation perspective to be an effective bulwark against weaponization. But the proposal showed some flexibility in the Iranian position. It was also an opening offer and unlikely Iran’s bottom line.
Although further negotiations may have revealed that the gulf between the White House demands and the Iranian positions was irreconcilable, Wikoff’s failure to comprehend key technical realities suggests he misunderstood the Iranian nuclear proposal and was ill-prepared to negotiate an effective nuclear agreement.
The following is a brief analysis of key misstatements and misconceptions in the post-attack briefings conducted primarily by Witkoff.
1. Witkoff perceived the Tehran Research Reactor as a threat and a ploy. It is not clear why.
Some of Witkoff’s most puzzling and factually-challenged statements during the March 3 call with reporters centered on the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), which is used to produce medical isotopes. The TRR, supplied by the United States, became operational in 1967. Originally, it ran on 90 percent enriched uranium fuel (weapons grade), but it was later converted by Argentina to run on 20 percent enriched uranium fuel.
During the call, Witkoff claimed there was “subterfuge” at the TRR and that it was being used to stockpile uranium fuel “to bring it towards a weapons-grade enrichment level.”
This assessment seemed based primarily on Witkoff’s conclusion that Iran possessed an “overabundance” of fuel for the reactor. He alleged that:
“the seven to eight years’ supply of fuel that they had been retaining at TRR was being stockpiled along with all the other stockpiling that had been done at Natanz, Esfahan, and Fordow. So, the claim that they were using a research reactor to do good for the Iranian people was a complete and false pretense to hide the fact that they were stockpiling there.”
The fuel that Iran has stockpiled for the TRR is not “hidden” and its existence should not come as a surprise. The IAEA has tracked TRR fuel and documented in its May 2025 report on Iran’s nuclear program that it had 45.5 kg of uranium enriched to 20 percent in fuel assemblies.
The 45.5 kg in fuel assemblies is about a seven-to eight-year supply for the TRR, which uses roughly 5-7 kg of 20 percent enriched uranium per year. The stockpile size was likely more than was strictly necessary for continued operations, but it is neither alarming nor surprising. The growth and fluctuations in the fuel supply were documented. Politically, the decision to keep a multi-year supply may have been driven in part by past challenges in obtaining fuel. Iran also imported fuel for the reactor from Russia in incremental shipments, thereby contributing to the supply.
More importantly, it is unclear why Wikoff appeared to view excess reactor fuel as nefarious. From a proliferation risk perspective, the 45.5 kg of 20 percent enriched uranium in the fuel assemblies was a small fraction of Iran’s overall stockpile:
According to a September 2025 IAEA report, Iran had, as of June 13, 2025:
- 6,024.4 kg of uranium enriched up to 5 percent U-235,
- 184.1 kg of uranium enriched up to 20 percent U-235,
- 440.9 kg of uranium enriched up to 60 percent U-235.
45.5 kilograms is far less than the amount of 20 percent material that is necessary to produce a bomb’s worth of 90 percent enriched uranium.
Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, enriched uranium in the form of fuel assemblies poses less of a proliferation risk than the material stockpiled in UF6gas, the form that is necessary for further enrichment. If Iran wanted to use the 45 kilograms for weapons purposes, it would need to convert the material back to gas form before enriching it.
So, it is unclear why Witkoff claimed in his briefing that the stockpile of fuel meant that “the only other use it could be, would be to bring it towards a weapons-grade enrichment level.”
Witkoff also claimed in the briefing that TRR was not producing medical isotopes. The IAEA’s regular reports do not provide information about the TRR’s products, but information about nuclear materials in fresh and irradiated fuel assemblies appears to contradict Witkoff’s claim that the reactor was a ruse. The agency noted its accountancy and monitoring of the irradiated TRR fuel assemblies, which supports that the TRR has been operating, and in several reports, such as those issued in 2023, notes when Iran has loaded new fuel assemblies into the reactor.
Furthermore, the IAEA reports do not appear to contain any recent concerns about misuse of the TRR. (In 2003, Iran acknowledged conducting plutonium separation experiments at the TRR that were not declared to the IAEA, but that does not appear to be what Witkoff is referring to, given it was more than 20 years ago and did not involve uranium enrichment.)
Witkoff also made several other mistakes regarding the TRR. He claimed that there was enrichment at the TRR—there is not.
He also claimed that the IAEA “has not been able to make inspections in Iran” since Operation Midnight Hammer. Iran did suspend IAEA access to its nuclear sites that were bombed in June 2025 in violation of its legally required safeguards agreement. But Iran has allowed the IAEA back to the TRR. A Feb. 27 report from the IAEA noted that the agency inspected the hot cells at the TRR on Dec. 22, 2025. The contents of that report does not raise concerns about the TRR.
2. Witkoff’s suspicion of the TRR led him to prematurely dismiss the Iranian proposal.
Witkoff’s unfounded conclusion that the TRR was a nefarious ploy by Iran to stockpile 20 percent fuel appeared to have negatively influenced his assessment of the proposal Iran brought to the Geneva talks on Feb. 26.
According to the March 3 backgrounder, Witkoff said Iran’s proposal for uranium enrichment was based on assessed needs for the TRR and “a few other research reactors” Iran planned to build over the next ten years. Based on this plan, Iran determined the scope of an enrichment program, including enriching uranium up to 20 percent. However, because Witkoff thought Iran was engaged in a “complete lie” about the TRR, he suggested that Iran’s proposal to enrich uranium up to 20 percent was deliberately designed to “peel off two months from the enrichment cycle,” by which he presumably meant Iran's "breakout time," or the time it takes to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb (25 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20 percent). A limit of 20 percent was also unacceptable and demonstrated a lack of seriousness because it was "more than five times" what was allowed by the 2015 nuclear deal, Witkoff said, which capped enrichment at 3.67 percent. That is true, but it appears Witkoff was overly focused on the enrichment level as an indicator of risk and made erroneous assumptions about a ceiling of 20 percent.
It is certainly true that 20 percent enriched uranium can be enriched to weapons-grade more quickly than if Iran started with natural uranium or reactor-grade enriched uranium (less than five percent). But it is unclear how or why Witkoff assessed that enriching to 20 percent would take two months off the breakout time. Breakout is a technical calculation influenced by a number of factors, including enrichment capacity (number and efficiency of centrifuges), the enrichment level of the feed, and the size of the feed stockpile.
Witkoff also did not seem to take into account the implications of Iran’s offer not to accumulate enriched uranium in assessing how Iran might breakout and the proliferation implications of Iran’s plan.
It would not be surprising if, in the proposal, Iran overestimated its capacity to expand its civil nuclear program and its timeframe for reactor construction. Nor would it be surprising if Iran asked for a larger enrichment program that it was willing to accept—nobody puts their bottom line in a first proposal. But Wikoff appeared to dismiss engaging with Iran on the premise of a needs-based enrichment program (after a multi-year pause) because he misunderstood the operation of the TRR.
3. Witkoff viewed Iran’s rejection of free fuel for life as a “tell” that Iran was not interested in diplomacy. The rejection should not have surprised him.
Witkoff said in the call that, after deciding that Iran’s proposed enrichment plan was based on the TRR ‘lie’ he offered Iran “free fuel” for its research reactors. He claimed that “if its really about building radioisotopes and creating medicines” Iran will take the free fuel from the United States. He said Iran rejected the offer by saying that free fuel was “an assault on our dignity.” He also expressed surprise that Iran had emphasized its ‘right to enrich.”
Witkoff said he concluded from Araghchi’s rejection that Iran was “angry for another reason” and was trying to “divert our attention away from the fact that all they really wanted to do was enrich.”
Iran’s rejection of free fuel and emphasis on fueling its reactors should not have been a surprise to Witkoff. Nor should it have been viewed as a “tell” that Tehran was not negotiating in good faith.
On a political level, Iran views enrichment as an issue of national sovereignty, a right conferred by the peaceful uses of nuclear energy provision (in Article IV) of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It is consistent with Iran’s past position for negotiators to reject any nuclear agreement if the price was zero enrichment.
Furthermore, why would Iran trust the United States to follow through? Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May 2018, despite Iran’s compliance, and participated in Israel’s strikes against Iran in June while diplomacy was ongoing. It is not surprising that Iran would have doubts about U.S. credibility.
There is also no indication that Witkoff raised or acknowledged the technical and legal hurdles to providing free nuclear reactor fuel. If the fuel were to come from the United States, for instance, that would require a negotiated nuclear cooperation agreement between Iran and the United States—a deal Congress could block. There could also be technical challenges and liability issues in fueling a reactor built in Iran.
Witkoff’s comments on the March 3 call suggest he tossed the offer out to Iran without thinking through how to provide any assurance about how the United States could follow through. Any more experienced diplomat would not have been surprised by Iran’s reaction.
4. Witkoff appeared to believe Iran had been engaged in weaponization efforts since 2003.
During the March 3 call with reporters, Witkoff was asked about a statement made the previous day by IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, where Grossi said the IAEA does not see a “structured program to manufacture nuclear weapons.”
Witkoff, however, suggested that Grossi misspoke said that Iran has “tested around weapons” since 2003. In a March 10 interview with CNBC Witkoff made a similar statement, saying that “everybody knows that [Iran] has been testing for weaponization since 2003.”
Prior to 2003, Iran had an active nuclear weapons development effort, conducted in violation of its safeguards obligations. In a 2007 Unclassified National Intelligence Estimate, the United States intelligence community assessed that the organized nuclear weapons program ended in 2003.
The IAEA similarly assessed in 2015 that Iran abandoned its organized weapons program in 2003, that some activities relevant to weaponization continued through 2009, but that there was no credible evidence of those activities after 2009.
In the 2025 Worldwide Threat Assessment, the U.S. intelligence community stated that “We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so.”
It does appear that Iran has, in recent years and after President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, taken steps that would enable it to weaponize more quickly, if the political decision were made to do so. However, as the IAEA and US intelligence statements make clear, there was no decision to develop nuclear weapons or “testing for weaponization.”
5. Witkoff said the United States agreed that missiles were a regional issue, then viewed the lack of progress as an indicator Iran did not want a nuclear deal.
Following the U.S. attack, Trump and other senior officials, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, have pointed to Iran’s ballistic missiles as an "imminent threat" to the United States (they were not). Hegseth went further and suggested Iran’s missiles and drones would enable Iran to develop a “conventional shield” to engage in “nuclear blackmail.”
Witkoff made clear in the March 3 call, however, that the Trump administration made a deliberate decision to “allow the region to talk about proxies and also to talk about ballistic missiles, because it’s a regional issue.” He said the missiles are an issue for the United States as well but addressing it at the regional level would streamline the process.
Delegating the missile issue to the other states in the Gulf region to negotiate with Iran seems to undermine U.S. claims regarding the missile threat. If the Trump administration viewed Iran’s missiles as a threat that warranted an illegal preventive strike, why tell Iran that negotiations over those systems should be explored on a regional basis?
In his March 3 briefing with reporters, Witkoff then accused Iran of making no effort to convene a regional discussion on missiles. This may be true, but if Iran was not expecting to talk to the U.S. about missiles, because Witkoff agreed it should be handled at the regional level, Iran’s failure to “talk about missiles” during the Feb. 26 Geneva negotiations should hardly be viewed as a surprise nor as an indicator of Iran’s view of the nuclear talks.
Serious Negotiations Require A Top-Notch Negotiating Team
Beyond these misperceptions, Witkoff’s statements are riddled with errors that again suggest that Witkoff was out of his technical depth. At one point, he expressed surprise that Iran produces centrifuges—it has for decades—and referred to Iran’s IR-6 centrifuge as “probably the most advanced centrifuge in the world” (it is not). He also called Natanz, Fordow, and Esfahan “industrial reactors” (they are not).
The Trump administration’s failure to exhaust diplomacy and send a qualified team to negotiate with Iran is inexcusable, given the devastating consequences of the war the United States and Israel have ignited. Although the strikes might set Iran’s nuclear program back, the proliferation dangers will not be "obliterated" through miltiary strikes alone. At the end of this conflict, the Iranian government will retain the knowledge—and likely some of the key materials—necessary to develop and build nuclear weapons, and perhaps a greater political motivation to do so.
If there is a diplomatic opening to reach an effective nuclear deal with Iran in the future, Trump should replace Witkoff as his lead negotiator. Witkoff’s failure to learn the nuclear file and surround himself with the technical expertise necessary to negotiate an effective deal was a diplomatic disservice to U.S. and international nonproliferation goals.—KELSEY DAVENPORT, director for nonproliferation policy