Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reiterated in an interview with Al Mayadeen published on Wednesday that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium will stay in Iran. “Not even the smallest amount of enriched material, however insignificant, will be taken out of Iran,” he said. “All of it will remain in our own hands.” Iran, he said, is “designing nuclear-powered ships and nuclear submarines, which is why we need our enriched material. At some point, we may also want to produce small modular reactors, or SMRs, so we need these materials.”

Moscow’s offer to take Iran’s enriched uranium into its custody remains on the table, however. “Russia proposed transferring Iranian enriched uranium to Russian territory for ‘dilution.’ Russian specialists have the necessary technology and equipment, as well as the relevant experience,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters on Wednesday, reported TASS. “This was our initiative, put forward with the firm understanding that any decision on Iranian nuclear material rests solely with Tehran. This proposal remains on the table.”