Tehran has “sort of” agreed to a new nuclear deal, President Trump said Thursday while wrapping up his whirlwind Mideast trip. If so, either America or Iran have retreated from what had been perceived as firm demands, with Washington insisting on the Iranians ending uranium enrichment and dismantling the existing nuclear infrastructure, which the Islamic Republic opposes.  

“I think we’re getting close to maybe doing a deal without having to do this,” Mr. Trump says, referring to a kinetic attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities. “You probably read today the story about Iran. It’s sort of agreed” to American terms. 

The president was referring to an NBC interview with a top aide to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Shamkhani, who said Iran might agree to halt production of highly enriched uranium but insisted that it would continue to enrich at a lower level.

Both Mr. Trump and his special Mideast envoy, Steven Witkoff, who is the principal negotiator with Iran, have said in the past that all enrichment must end and the nuclear facilities be dismantled. “They’re not going to be making any nuclear dust in Iran,” Mr. Trump said in Qatar Thursday. 

If by that the president is “referring to prohibiting enrichment on Iranian soil, that would be a major win for his Iran policy,” an Iran watcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Behnam Ben Taleblu, tells the Sun. Tehran, though, insists that it would never accede to zero enrichment, which raises doubts about a pending agreement. 

“Unless there is a massive collapse in American or Iranian private positions compared to what leaders and policymakers have been saying in public, Iran and the U.S. aren’t close to a deal,” Mr. Ben Taleblu says.  

On Thursday Mr. Trump reposted an X post promoting NBC’s Shamkhani interview. During it, the top Tehran official told the network that Iran “would commit to never making nuclear weapons, getting rid of its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium which can be weaponized, enrich uranium only to the lower levels needed for civilian use, and allow international inspectors to supervise the process, in exchange for the immediate lifting of all economic sanctions on Iran.”

American officials have said that the sides are far apart, at least on the idea of immediate removal of sanctions. On Tuesday the Department of State announced a new set of sanctions related to Iran’s oil exports to Communist China, which added to a gradual increase in the pressure on Iran.   

Citing unidentified Washington sources, Axios, the Wall Street Journal, and the Guardian reported that Mr. Witkoff gave his Iranian interlocutors a written proposal. Iranian officials denied receiving such a document, perhaps hoping to stem internal pressure to quickly accept it. Mr. Trump has urged Iran to make a fast decision. 

The Iranians “like to draw the United States into a very protracted negotiating period,” the policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, Jason Brodsky, tells the Sun. “The negotiating process is a shield from pressure, and that’s as important as the product, if a deal is inked in the end.”

Tehran, he adds, “has been consistent at maintaining a domestic enrichment capability, retaining their nuclear infrastructure, no negotiations over limitations of its missile and drone programs, and no negotiations over their support of terror proxies.” 

According to the Guardian a compromise agreement could contain a period of three years in which Iran would completely cease uranium enrichment. Following that, Iran would revert “to enriching at 3.75% purity, the level set out in the 2015 nuclear agreement that Trump quit in 2018,” according to the British newspaper. 

Such a three-year period would coincide with Mr. Trump’s term in office. While zero enrichment in that time would be a major improvement over the Obama-era deal, it would fall short of how administration officials have been describing a deal. Mr. Witkoff told Breitbart last week that Iran must “dismantle” its program, adding that “an enrichment program can never exist in the state of Iran ever again. That’s our red line.” 

A letter that was initiated by Senators Cotton and Graham and signed by 52 senators was delivered to the White House Wednesday. The “scope and breadth of Iran’s nuclear buildout have made it impossible to verify any new deal that allows Iran to continue enriching uranium,” the senators wrote.

Like many of his predecessors, Mr. Trump consistently says that Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon.” Yet, he sounds increasingly eager for a quick deal that will prevent him from resorting to military force. “My priority is to end conflicts, not start them,” he told American troops at Qatar’s Al Udaid military base Thursday.