What to know about Iran's uranium enrichment and its role in the Middle East conflict
What to know about Iran's uranium enrichment and its role in the Middle East conflict
MAX ZAHNFri, April 17, 2026 at 10:47 PM UTC
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President Donald Trump on Friday vowed to remove Iran’s "Nuclear ‘Dust" as part of an effort to ensure the nation never possesses a nuclear weapon.
A day earlier, Trump told reporters at the White House that Iran had agreed to "give us back the nuclear dust that’s way underground,” repeating the phrase he uses in reference to Iran's highly enriched uranium.
Appearing on Iranian State Television on Friday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmael Baqaei strongly rebuked Trump's claim.
"Iran's enriched uranium is not going to be transferred anywhere under any circumstances," Baqaei said.
Iran's nuclear program appears to remain a key sticking point in the standoff between the two sides as the U.S.-Iran ceasefire approaches a deadline on Tuesday.
Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, such as energy production.
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Here’s what to know about Iran’s enriched uranium and its role in the Middle East conflict.
What is enriched uranium?
Uranium contains three natural isotopes, just one of which is used to generate energy or build a nuclear bomb. Known as U-235, the rare isotope makes up less than 1% of isotopes found in naturally occurring uranium. The process of uranium enrichment increases the proportion made up by U-235.
Commercial nuclear reactors used to generate electricity typically run on fuel that is enriched between 3% and 5%, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation.
Weapons-grade uranium enrichment comes at an ideal level of about 90%, though a crude weapon can be deployed with material enriched at lower levels, Howard Hall, professor of nuclear security at the University of Tennessee, told ABC News.
"There's nothing magic about the 90% level," Hall said.
How does uranium get enriched?
Uranium is typically enriched with centrifuges, which are fast-rotating cylinders. Operators feed uranium gas into centrifuges that spin between 50,000 and 70,000 rotations per minute, Anna Erickson, professor of nuclear and radiological engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, said on Substack on Tuesday.
“When the gas spins that fast, the slightly heavier atoms drift toward the outer wall. The slightly lighter U-235 atoms stay a little more concentrated toward the center. You draw off the two streams separately,” Erickson said.
Using a chain of centrifuges, scientists gradually form a material made up of a larger share of the U-235 atoms, Erickson added.
Uranium enrichment, she said, aims to achieve a “higher concentration of the isotope you actually want.”
What grade of enriched uranium does Iran possess, and how close is it to weapons-grade?
Iran possessed about 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60% as of June 2025, the International Atomic Energy Agency, a United Nations watchdog group, said in a report issued in February.
That quantity of uranium is enough to produce nine or 10 nuclear bombs if enriched to weapons-grade levels, Erickson said.
The final step of enriching uranium from 60% to 90% is a relatively small task within the overall enrichment process, analysts told ABC News.
“The trick of uranium enrichment is that most of the work is done going from natural to low-enriched uranium,” Hall said.
The further along the enrichment process goes, the quicker the progress, Hall added.
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“You have small steps that multiply over and over -- it’s like compound interest,” he said.
2026 Vantor/AFP via Getty Images - PHOTO: An overview of the Natanz nuclear complex facility with damage observed on several buildings near Natanz, Isfahan province, Iran in a satellite image taken, March 2, 2026.
Stockholm International Peace Institute, an independent research group, in a report described the distance from 60% enrichment to weapons-grade as “very short.”
In March, United States Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff said the 60% enriched uranium can be brought to weapons-grade in about a week and that the 20% enriched uranium can be brought to weapons-grade in three to four weeks.
Iran’s uranium stockpile also included about 9,400 kilograms of uranium enriched at lower levels as of last June, most of which is enriched at or below 5%, the IAEA said in February.
The IAEA has not been able to verify the nuclear stockpile since then, the group said, describing the need for inspection as “long overdue according to standard safeguards practice.”
In June, the IAEA passed a resolution that stated Iran breached its non-proliferation agreements and has been illegally stockpiling enriched uranium.
Does Iran have the capability to further enrich its uranium?
The task of further enrichment requires operational centrifuges, but the current capacity of Iran’s nuclear program is unclear, some analysts said.
Iran's main nuclear sites faced attacks during the 12-day war in June and the current conflict.
In June, Trump said, "Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated."
After the attack, Trump said that Iran’s leadership “sought to rebuild their nuclear program at a totally different location, making clear they had no intention of abandoning their pursuit of nuclear weapons.”
The exact status of the program is uncertain, some analysts said. In February, the IAEA said it cannot verify “Iran’s inventories of centrifuges and related equipment.”
“Whether the institutional capacity to produce more enriched uranium survives the strikes on declared facilities (in bunkers, in dispersed locations, in the heads of engineers who were not in those buildings when the bombs fell) is genuinely unknown,” Erickson said on Substack on Tuesday.
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Did the U.S.-Iran nuclear agreement under President Barack Obama limit Iran’s uranium enrichment?
Yes, the U.S.-Iran nuclear agreement in 2015 prohibited the enrichment of uranium to any level above 3.67%, capping the program well below weapons-grade. Under the deal, that provision was set to expire in 2030.
In 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement. One year later, Iran ramped up its uranium enrichment, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation.
In April 2021, Iran said it had begun enriching uranium to 60%, Reuters reported.
How close is Iran to a nuclear bomb?
Even if Iran were to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, the nation would still need to weaponize the material and build a bomb.
After getting enough weapons-grade uranium, most experts estimate it would take Iran several months to two years to actually make a deliverable nuclear warhead.
Hall, of the University of Tennessee, said the duration would come down to the condition of Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“I would hesitate to put a number on that,” Hall said. “It would depend pretty heavily on how much infrastructure they’ve got already set up to do that.”
ABC News' Ivan Pereira, Bill Hutchinson, Desiree Adib and Victoria Beaule contributed to this report.
Source: “AOL Breaking”
