Iran Signals Willingness to Suspend Nuclear Program in Secret Message to Putin

Iran's leadership has privately signaled to Russia that it is prepared to suspend or shut down its nuclear program as part of a renewed agreement with the United States, sources familiar with the matter said.

The New York Times reported, citing two sources within Iran, that Tehran communicated this willingness through Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, who relayed a message from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week.

The sources indicated that Iran would prefer an arrangement modeled on an American proposal from last summer, under which a regional consortium would be established to handle uranium enrichment. They also said Iran could agree to transfer its enriched uranium to Russia, a mechanism that was used under the 2015 nuclear deal.

President Donald Trump, when asked about the reported negotiations between his envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian officials, declined to offer specifics. "We have ships heading to Iran right now, the biggest and best ships and at the same time we have our talks with Iran," Trump said. "We'll see how it all works out." He added that he would welcome a deal, but warned that if one is not reached, "something bad" would happen, and that the military forces en route to Iran were larger than those previously deployed to Venezuela.

Iran's senior adviser to Khamenei, Ali Shamkhani, pushed back in an interview with the Lebanese outlet Al-Mayadeen, warning that the tolerance shown during the 12-day war would not be repeated. "We have precise information indicating that certain regions have in fact issued threats directed against us," he said, adding that Iran had conveyed to regional nations that it would no longer tolerate further provocations.

Separately, Reuters reported that senior figures within Iran's government have told Khamenei that public anger following last month's crackdown, the bloodiest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has reached a level where fear is no longer an effective deterrent. Several sources indicated that many citizens are prepared to once again confront security forces.

Those sources warned that external pressure, such as a limited American strike, could embolden protesters and cause irreversible damage to the regime. One source said that Iran's adversaries are seeking to reignite protests in order to bring about the end of the Islamic Republic, and cautioned that an uprising would likely bring further violence. The central concern within Iran's leadership, the source said, is that a combination of military strikes and mass civilian protests could cause the governing system to collapse.