Iran Tells Antalya Forum It Will Not Surrender Enriched Uranium as Former UK Minister Says Tehran Holds the Leverage
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh told an international diplomatic audience on 19 April 2026 that Tehran would not hand over its enriched uranium stockpile to the United States, staking out a firm negotiating position as diplomatic efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear accord continue to stall.
Speaking at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey, Khatibzadeh framed Iran's nuclear programme as an act of collective regional defense rather than a provocation directed at Washington, according to video reports from The Cradle Media. The remarks came as former British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told The Telegraph that Iran possessed significant leverage in any future negotiations with the United States, a characterization at odds with the messaging coming from the US State Department.
The juxtaposition of these two positions — Tehran asserting its right to a self-determining nuclear capability and a senior Western voice acknowledging Iranian negotiating strength — illustrates a diplomatic standoff with few obvious off-ramps. The question is not merely whether a renewed nuclear deal is possible, but whether the framework underpinning the original Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) remains viable at all.
The Antalya Positioning
Khatibzadeh's remarks at the Turkish-hosted forum were notable for their directness. According to WarMonitors, the Iranian deputy foreign minister stated plainly that Iran would not transfer its enriched uranium to the United States. That refusal is not new — Tehran has maintained that position since the US withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 — but the setting was significant. The Antalya Diplomacy Forum brings together officials and analysts from across the diplomatic spectrum, and Khatibzadeh used the platform to articulate a broad conceptual defense of Iran's posture.
Tehran's framing — that it is acting in defense of the entire region rather than in defiance of international norms — is a rhetorical strategy that seeks to reframe the nuclear question from a bilateral US-Iran dispute into a matter of regional sovereignty. Iranian officials have long argued that the presence of US military forces in the Persian Gulf and the broader Middle East, not Iran's enrichment activities, constitutes the primary security threat to regional states.
The claim is one that resonates beyond Tehran's immediate political base. Across the Gulf states and in parts of North Africa, polling and diplomatic correspondence consistently suggest that regional governments are deeply ambivalent about being positioned as bystanders in a US-China or US-Iran contest. Khatibzadeh was speaking to that ambivalence, even if only implicitly.
What Washington Wants vs. What Tehran Will Accept
US demands on Iran's nuclear programme are well-documented: caps on enrichment levels, limitations on centrifuge development, inspections access under an expanded monitoring regime, and the transfer of accumulated enriched uranium out of the country. The Biden administration, and signals from the current US policy apparatus, have maintained that complete uranium surrender was a precondition for sanctions relief under any renewed deal.
Tehran's refusal makes clear that the gap between those positions has not narrowed in any meaningful way since the original JCPOA collapsed. What is different now is the temporal context. Iran has spent years accumulating enrichment capacity under a relaxed monitoring environment. The uranium stockpile that exists today is qualitatively and quantitatively different from what was placed under限制 in 2015. The negotiating table is no longer shaped the same way.
Whether Khatibzadeh's refusal constitutes a permanent position or a negotiating opening gambit is a question the available sources do not fully resolve. The statement was firm, but firm statements are sometimes the prelude to eventual compromise. The sources do not indicate what, if any, alternative arrangement Tehran might be prepared to consider.
The Hammond Assessment
The Telegraph, reporting on comments by former British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, offered a candid assessment from a senior Western figure who negotiated with Iran during the original JCPOA process. According to the Mehr News Agency coverage of the report, Hammond told the British newspaper that Iran had the upper hand in negotiations. That framing — from a politician who served in the government that helped design the original accord — is a significant counterpoint to the US position that maximum pressure remains the appropriate lever.
Hammond's observation reflects a view that is quietly held in parts of the European diplomatic establishment: that the geopolitical landscape has shifted in ways that favor Tehran. Iran's regional partnerships have deepened since 2018, its relationship with China is anchored by a 25-year strategic cooperation agreement, and its enrichment capabilities have expanded to the point where any deal that requires dismantlement faces severe domestic political obstacles in Tehran.
None of this means Iran has won. Sanctions continue to impose significant economic costs, and the country remains subject to substantial international isolation in financial and trade networks. But the cost-benefit calculus for the United States in seeking a renewed agreement has changed. Khamenei's position — that Iran will not again accept a deal that can be abandoned by a future administration — adds a further structural obstacle that the original JCPOA architects did not have to navigate.
Structural Stakes and the Path Ahead
What the Antalya forum exchange reveals is that both sides have moved toward positions that make compromise genuinely difficult, without either side having a clear pathway to outright victory. Iran has expanded its nuclear footprint to the point where complete rollback is politically untenable in Tehran. The United States has signaled that sanctions relief cannot come without verifiable disarmament, which Tehran views as a surrender of sovereign capability.
The implications extend beyond the bilateral relationship. A non-deal outcome reinforces the logic of a world in which the rules-based architecture governing nuclear non-proliferation continues to erode. Other states watching from the sidelines — those with nascent enrichment programmes or dormant ambitions — observe that the cost of acquiring a threshold nuclear capability is measured in years of isolation, not in automatic military response. That calculus may be correct. It also may be the precise outcome that the non-proliferation regime was designed to prevent.
For Gulf states and other regional actors, the stakes are immediate. A sustained Iranian nuclear capability — even one framed as defensive and civilian in character — reshapes deterrence calculations from Riyadh to Jerusalem. Whether those states view the current diplomatic impasse as a reason to push for renewed negotiations or as evidence that they must develop their own strategic responses is a question that will define the regional order for years to come.
Khatibzadeh's Antalya remarks have not received prominent coverage in Western wire services, which have focused on bilateral US-China trade tensions and ongoing Ukraine-related diplomacy. The Iran dimension of the current geopolitical moment is being covered more extensively in regional and Global South outlets than in the dominant Anglophone wire ecosystem.
Wire provenance
This editorial synthesis draws on the following public wire/social posts:
- https://t.me/thecradlemedia
- https://t.me/WarMonitors
- https://t.me/mehrnews