US President Donald Trump is seeking to request funding worth $672 million, with the aim of supporting a broad program to remove and neutralize Iranian nuclear materials, as part of US efforts to transform the memorandum of understanding signed with Tehran into a detailed agreement regarding its nuclear program.
According to the information, the funding will be used to support US verification activities inside Iran, inspections carried out by the International Atomic Energy Agency, in addition to efforts to detect smuggling of nuclear materials, and expand the work of emergency nuclear support teams throughout the Middle East.
The program aims to end Iran’s ability to develop or obtain a nuclear weapon, by eliminating sensitive nuclear materials, technologies, equipment and infrastructure, within arrangements that are supposed to be subject to direct international oversight.
This request comes at a time when American and Iranian negotiators are working to transform the memorandum of understanding signed on June 17 into a detailed agreement that addresses the Iranian nuclear program and a stockpile estimated at about 900 pounds of enriched uranium close to the level of military use.
The memorandum, according to circulating data, stipulates reducing the enrichment of these materials inside Iran and under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, while the fate of the final stock remains undecided yet.
Iran also agreed, according to the American narrative, to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to return to its territory for the first time since the American and Israeli strikes that targeted its nuclear infrastructure last year.
Trump had announced that Iran had agreed to a broad and continuous level of nuclear inspections, considering that this mechanism would ensure oversight of the Iranian program “indefinitely.”
This step reflects the transition of the American-Iranian understanding from the general political framework to research into the most sensitive operational details, especially the fate of enriched uranium, inspection mechanisms, and the limits of the role that the International Atomic Energy Agency will play. It also places the Iranian nuclear file once again at the heart of the regional equation, amid anticipation of the path of the final agreement and whether it will lead to a reduction in tension or open a new door to dispute between Washington and Tehran.
