Russia is prepared to enrich uranium on behalf of Iran to help the country advance its peaceful nuclear energy program, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced following his participation in the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, according to TASS.
Lavrov clarified that Moscow’s role is not one of mediation, but of practical cooperation.
"As far as we are concerned, we are not talking about mediation. President Putin has reminded the international community that when the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was originally adopted, it took into account Russia’s capacity to reprocess the uranium accumulated in Iran before the deal, enriching it to levels suitable for energy purposes," Lavrov stated.
Russia Ready to Receive and Reprocess Excess Uranium
Lavrov emphasized that Russia is willing to collect and reprocess any surplus uranium enriched beyond the civilian-use threshold, and then return it to Iran for peaceful use in the country’s nuclear energy infrastructure.
This move would represent a continuation of prior nuclear cooperation efforts between the two countries under the JCPOA framework, where Russia previously played a central role in the conversion and storage of enriched Iranian uranium.
Putin Reaffirms Iran's Religious Ban on Nuclear Weapons
Earlier, on June 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly reaffirmed Iran’s adherence to its religious ban (fatwa) on the development of nuclear weapons. He also noted that Iran, as an Islamic republic, follows its own set of moral and religious principles, which Moscow takes into account in its nuclear cooperation.
