Trump says recovering Iran uranium 'will be a long and difficult process'

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said late Monday the United States obtaining uranium from Iran would be “long” and “difficult” in the aftermath of last year’s US strikes on Tehran’s nuclear sites.

“Operation Midnight Hammer was a complete and total obliteration of the Nuclear Dust sites in Iran,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, adding: “Therefore, digging it out will be a long and difficult process.”

The US leader regularly uses the term “nuclear dust” to refer to Iran’s stock of enriched uranium, which the United States accuses Iran of hoarding in order to make an atomic bomb.

But he has also sometimes used it to refer to material left from US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June last year.

The 79-year-old president maintains Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium would ultimately be transferred to US territory, despite Iran’s foreign ministry denying any such plans.

The United States and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran on February 28 to remove what Israel described as “the existential threat” posed by the Islamic republic’s nuclear program.

Israeli officials claimed that Tehran had stepped up efforts to acquire an atomic weapon since the end of the 12-day war in last June, which was launched by Israel and included US bombings of three nuclear facilities, including an enrichment plant.