Albusaidi – who has mediated several rounds of talks between the US and Iran over the past month – told “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan that a “peace deal is within our reach.”
He said Iran has agreed that it will “never, ever… have nuclear material that will create a bomb,” which he called a “great achievement.” The country’s existing stockpiles of enriched uranium would be “blended to the lowest possible level” and “converted into fuel, and that fuel will be irreversible,” Albusaidi said.
And Iran is willing to grant inspectors from the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency “full access” to its nuclear sites to verify the terms of the deal, Albusaidi said.
“There would be no accumulation, no stockpiling and full verification,” he said. Albusaidi said that if a fair and lasting deal is reached, he is “confident” that even US inspectors will be given access at some point in the process.
Asked whether he believes enough progress has been made to avert US attacks on Iran, Albusaidi said: “I hope so.” But he said “we need a little more time” to iron out some details. Technical talks are scheduled for Monday in Vienna, and Albusaidi said he hopes to meet with U.S. negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner a few days later.
Mr. Trump struck a different tone earlier Friday: reporters tell he is “not happy” with the pace of negotiations and has not yet decided whether to authorize strikes.
“I’m not happy with the fact that they don’t want to give us what we need,” he said. ‘I’m not happy about that. We’ll see what happens. We’ll talk later.’
Mr. Trump said Friday afternoon that he wants Iran to stop enriching uranium altogether.
“They want to enrich a little. You don’t need to enrich when you have that much oil,” the president said at an event in Texas. “I say: no enrichment.”
Iran has long ruled out abandoning its uranium enrichment program, along with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi narrate Face the Nation said last week that the country has “every right to enjoy peaceful nuclear energy, including enrichment.”
Iran has previously agreed to limits on uranium enrichment under a 2015 deal struck with the US and several other foreign powers. Trump withdrew from the Obama-era deal during his first term, arguing it was not tough enough.
In recent years, Iran has enriched uranium to a purity of 60%, which is a small step away from the level needed for nuclear weapons. American intelligence services assessed last spring that Iran had not reauthorized a nuclear weapons program that was suspended in 2003, and the country has long denied any interest in developing a nuclear weapon.
Albusaidi said Friday that Iran is not currently enriching uranium, although a confidential IAEA report this week assessed that Iran is carrying out unexplained activities at nuclear sites bombed by the US last June, CBS News has confirmed.
Mr. Trump has done that told reporters in recent weeks that he is considering another attack on Iran if a nuclear deal cannot be reached, although he said his preference is diplomacy.
Negotiators from Iran and the US have held three rounds of indirect talks over the past month, including initial talks in Oman and two rounds in Geneva, Switzerland.
The talks focused on Iran’s nuclear program, not its ballistic missiles or its practice of financing proxies in the Middle East — two areas that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued should be part of any deal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this week called Iran’s reluctance to discuss ballistic missiles a “big, big problem.”
Albusaidi told CBS News that “the number one priority is to get this nuclear issue resolved,” but added: “I believe Iran is open to discussing everything.”
He said he believes both the American and Iranian sides are “very, very serious about reaching an agreement.” He suggested a deal could be struck soon, although the two sides may need three months to implement the terms of an agreement.
“If I were President Trump, my only advice would be to give those negotiators enough room to really close down the remaining areas that we need to discuss and agree on,” Albusaidi said.
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