Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared on Fox News where he spoke to the current progress of U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations:
“A regime like that can never have nuclear weapons, and the President has made clear they will not have a nuclear weapon. We hope it’s through the path of negotiation. We hope it’s through the path of diplomacy. Steve Witkoff is doing a great job at negotiating, and a very difficult negotiation. This will not be easy. But he’s doing a great job at trying to bring about that peaceful resolution to this problem. And we should pray that he is successful, I have confidence in him. But in the end, the decision lies in the hands of one person — and that’s the Supreme Leader in Iran. And I hope he chooses the path of peace and prosperity, not a destructive path. And we’ll see how that plays out.”
When prompted by the host Sean Hannity on Iran’s enrichment to the 60% threshold, Sec. Rubio stated: “That’s misleading when you hear that number because they think 60% enrichment and 90% is what you need for a weapon. Actually, 90% of the work it takes to get to weapons grade enrichment is getting to 60%. Once you’re at 60%, you’re 90% of the way there. You are, in essence, a threshold nuclear weapon state, which is what Iran basically has become. They are at the threshold of a nuclear weapon. If they decided to do so, they could do so very quickly if they stockpile enough of that 60% enriched, they could very quickly turn it into 90% and weaponize it. That’s the danger we face right now. That’s the urgency here. That’s why Israel feels urgency about it and that’s why we feel urgency about it. But not just us, throughout the Gulf region, no country wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon. And you also talk about not just the weapon, they have long range missiles that they can deliver those weapons to. This is a very grave risk. And they are enriching at that level, and they are openly doing it by the way. In fact, their Congress — their legislative branch — actually passed a law requiring them to enrich at a certain level because JCPOA — the Obama deal with Iran — was cancelled.* So this is a critical moment. The president has made it a priority. And now people understand the urgency here because they are fairly close — too close for comfort — to a nuclear weapon. We have to roll that back one way or another. And we hope it’s peacefully and through the process of negotiation.”
Editor’s note: the U.S. exit from the JCPOA in 2018 did open the door to higher-level enrichment by Iran, though Iran’s parliament did not pass a law mandating a higher level of enrichment until after the assassination of top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November 2020.