War in the Middle East: How Could the United States Retrieve Enriched Uranium from Iran?

Iranian Uranium: A Delicate Situation

• In the midst of negotiations on Thursday regarding the Strait of Hormuz, the standoff between Tehran and Washington continues in parallel over Iranian enriched uranium.
• Revelations in the American press suggest the possibility for Donald Trump to recover what he calls “nuclear dust.”
• The United States has previously extracted uranium from another nation, such as Kazakhstan, in a very different context.

Seizing Iranian uranium, is it an impossible mission for Trump? This is not so certain. Amid tensions between Tehran and Washington, the American president stated on Monday, April 20 that it would be “long and difficult” to unearth the 440 kilograms of highly enriched Iranian uranium, contrary to what he claimed a few days earlier. These stocks, heavily damaged since American strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June 2025, are difficult to locate.

Iran also refuses any transfer of this “nuclear dust.” The spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Esma’il Bagha’i, cited by state television, reiterated on Friday that “just as Iranian soil is sacred to us, this issue is of great importance to us.” Trump’s optimism, however, does not seem to be just rhetoric.

Counterpart for Iran

According to the American press, including an article from the Wall Street Journal published on April 17, the American president is meticulously crafting a plan to obtain this uranium enriched to 60%, close to the 90% needed for developing a nuclear bomb.

The deal put on the table by Washington? Unfreezing $20 billion in blocked funds abroad for Tehran. This sum does not constitute a lifting of American economic sanctions; it serves as a preview. Iran is hesitating, urged on by its Pakistani and Chinese partners.

Even if the agreement remains hypothetical, what logistics would it involve? As journalist Lucile Devillers explains in the video at the beginning of this article from the 24H Pujadas program on LCI, uranium is stored in tightly sealed metal cylinders. Unearthing and transporting these massive cylinders may require some precautions.

Their exact location remains unclear. Iranian cities of Isfahan, Natanz, or Fordo could harbor them according to Spencer Faragasso, a researcher at the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) with Agence France-Presse (AFP). In the event of a found location, the task remains risky. Lucile Devillers points out that to excavate these forests, it would be necessary to dig up to 800 meters under the rock in “probably cracked” tunnels.

Risky Operation

Moreover, the status of the stocks remains unknown since Iran denies inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to the ravaged nuclear sites. The uranium could be shipped to “Russia, as was the case at the time of the 2015 agreement,” Lucile Devillers adds, “apparently, the US or a Western country is excluded.” Transporting them, however, would pose no problem.

This would not be the first time the United States managed to unearth uranium from another country. In Kazakhstan, in 1994 after the end of the Cold War, the American military carried out the operation named “Sapphire”: 600 kilos of enriched uranium to 90% were evacuated. This completely secret mission, as highlighted by Le Monde, mobilized hundreds of people and colossal means like three C-5 heavy transport aircraft to transport the stocks to the Oak Ridge nuclear facility in Tennessee.

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This successful operation, however, took place in a much less tense context between the United States and Kazakhstan. During the summer of 1993, Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Kazakh president, asked the American government to help cleanse the country of any traces of nuclear material, previously produced under the USSR. In a context much more fraught with Iran, the mission does not seem impossible, just very delicate.