Mohsen Rezaei to Asim Munir: Enriched uranium will not leave Iran

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Islamic Republic's Supreme National Security Council, said on Tuesday, 20 October 2026, in a meeting with Field Marshal Asim Munir, commander of the Pakistani army, that not even a particle of enriched uranium will leave Iran. The meeting took place as part of Munir's trip to Tehran, the start of which DIAR covered in an earlier report.

Rezaei called the stockpile of enriched uranium a "national asset" and said it must be used inside the country. He added that as long as the United States takes no confidence-building steps there will be no negotiations, and that these steps begin with accepting Tehran's conditions. Rezaei had earlier set out three main conditions: an end to the war on all fronts, release of the frozen assets, and an end to the naval blockade of Iran's islands, saying these conditions had reached Washington via Qatar.

Ghalibaf: we have nothing new to say

Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Islamic Republic's parliament, in a separate meeting with Munir, said Tehran has "nothing new to say" and that the United States must implement the seven conditions presented in New York. He accused Donald Trump's administration of violating the Islamabad memorandum and said the Strait of Hormuz will not be reopened until those conditions are met. Munir also met Masoud Pezeshkian, but no details of that conversation have been published.

The main sticking point: the 60 percent stockpile

The fate of about 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity is one of the main points of dispute between Washington and Tehran. Israel has tied the end of the war to the removal of this stockpile from Iran, and US Vice President JD Vance has said the Islamic Republic must genuinely reduce enrichment. Rezaei's remarks came hours after reports of a new Qatari-Pakistani plan to release part of the assets and inspect nuclear facilities; neither side has officially confirmed those reports.

While hosting the Pakistani mediator, the Islamic Republic completely rejected the removal of enriched uranium, the other side's main demand.

Background

The war between the United States and the Islamic Republic, which began on 28 February this year, was halted by the Islamabad memorandum of 18 June, but it collapsed less than three weeks later, after the Islamic Republic attacked three ships in the Strait of Hormuz and US strikes resumed. Munir's trip to Tehran came a day after a visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and the Islamic Republic's foreign ministry spokesman had said that same day that a resumption of the war cannot be ruled out.