Kazakhstan has said it was willing to store Iran's near-weapons-grade uranium stockpile, in a possible solution to one of the key stumbling blocks to the ongoing US–Iran peace deal negotiations.
The proposal comes as the US and Iran have continued to exchange fire while Tehran said it has paused mediated communication with Washington, further straining already fragile talks.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi said Kazakhstan could host the existing material, and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev expressed support for the idea during a meeting with Grossi in Astana last week, positioning Kazakhstan as a potential neutral custodian of the stockpile.
“We are signalling our willingness to provide technical assistance in good faith, subject to the achievement of the necessary international agreements among all parties,” Yerlan Zhetybayev, spokesperson for Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a briefing on Monday.
Kazakhstan has been widely cited as a model for nuclear disarmament. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Kazakhstan inherited one of the world's largest nuclear arsenals — some 1,400 warheads — and voluntarily dismantled it by 1995, closing the Soviet Semipalatinsk nuclear test site and renouncing nuclear weapons entirely.
