‘Have inalienable right to stop you’: US Special Envoy Witkoff says Iran insisted on right to enrich nuclear fuel

WASHINGTON: US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff has told Fox News that during the negotiations with Iran before Operation Epic Fury began, Iran insisted on having an “inalienable right” to enrich nuclear fuel while the US made it clear that if such an action takes place then America had the right to stop them.

In his remarks to Fox News, Witkoff said, “So just to give you a little bit of a taste of how these three days of negotiations went, three separate times Jared and I opened up with the Iranian negotiators telling us they had the inalienable right to enrich all the nuclear fuel that they possessed. That’s how they opened. We responded that the president feels we have the inalienable right to stop you dead in your tracks. They went on to say that beyond the inalienable right to enrich, that was going to be their starting point. And Jared and I just sort of looked at each other, flummoxed, and said, well, we’re really in for it now”.

Witkoff: The manufacturer their own centrifuges to enrich this material. There is almost no stopping them, they have an endless supply. The 60% can be brought to 90%, weapon grade in roughly one week, maybe ten days. pic.twitter.com/0BtlXDhm61

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 3, 2026

His remarks come as a full-scale conflict erupted in West Asia involving the United States, Israel, and Iran, following a major “military offensive” launched on February 28. In a coordinated operation known as Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion, US and Israeli forces carried out large-scale air and missile strikes across Iran, targeting key military sites, nuclear-related infrastructure, and leadership compounds.

In response, Iran retaliated by launching ballistic missiles and drones at US assets and allies across the region, including Israel, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan, further widening the conflict and heightening risks for civilians and expatriates alike.

World leaders and international bodies are currently urging de-escalation as the risk of a wider regional conflict grows, though fighting continues without a clear end in sight.

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday (local time) backed the US-Israeli military action against Iran as a part of Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion noting that it protects not only US, Israel but also the world at large from ‘theological thuggery’.

He made the remarks in an interview to Fox News. The Israeli PM said, “It’s not a terrible thing to protect humanity, to protect America, to protect Israel, to protect the free world from this theological thuggery. These fanatics who don’t care — who just export death, mass death, everywhere.”

Netanyahu praised the leadership of Trump and added, “There’s never been a president like Donald J. Trump. His resoluteness, his decisiveness, his clarity of thinking, the way he gets things — gets right to the crux of things. He cuts through all the fluff, cuts through the chase, gets down to the main point, and it gets down to the main action that needs to be taken”.

US Vice-President JD Vance on Monday (local time) said President Donald Trump decided to take action against Iran in order to protect America’s national security. Vance added that Trump had determined to ensure America remains safe not only for a few years during his tenure as the President, but to ensure that Iran could ‘never’ to have a nuclear weapon. (ANI)