Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran’s enriched uranium must be removed from the country – and claims Donald Trump told him he wants to “go in there” and take it out.
Netanyahu insisted the conflict is not over because Iran still possesses enriched uranium, according to preview clips from a CBS “60 Minutes” interview set to air in full later Sunday night. Any operation to seize the remaining uranium, as suggested, would need Marines on the ground.
In the preview, Netanyahu did not initially specify whether he was referring only to Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched near-weapons-grade uranium — believed to be buried underground in Isfahan — or its broader supply of enriched uranium. Asked how the highly enriched material should be removed, he responded: “You go in, and you take it out.”
“There are still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled. There are still proxies that Iran supports. There are ballistic missiles that they still want to produce. Now, we’ve degraded a lot of it, but all that is still there, and there’s work to be done,” he said
Netanyahu suggested the uranium could be physically removed with or without an agreement with Tehran and indicated the United States would support either option, while declining to discuss specific military plans or a timeline.
“What President Trump has said to me: ‘I wanna go in there.’ And I think it can be done physically. That’s not the problem. If you have an agreement and you go in and you take it out, why not? That’s the best way,” he said.
Asked if it can be taken out by force if no agreement is reached, Netanyahu replied: “Well, you’re gonna ask me these questions, I’m gonna dodge them, because I’m not gonna talk about our military possibilities… I’m not gonna give a timetable to it, but I’m gonna say that’s a terrifically important mission.”
His view on the Supreme Leader’s condition
Netanyahu also said he believes Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is alive, despite not being seen or heard from publicly since his appointment in early March. “I think he is alive. What his condition is, it’s hard to say, you know? He’s holed up in some bunker or in some secret place,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu added that, Mojtaba is “trying to exert his authority,” but assessed that his authority is less than what his father, predecessor, Ali Khamenei, had wielded.
He also suggested neither Israel nor the U.S. anticipated how effectively Iran could use its control of the Strait of Hormuz before the recent war began. “I don’t claim perfect foresight, and nobody had perfect foresight. Neither did the Iranians,” Netanyahu said in response to a New York Times report that he had predicted Tehran would be too weakened by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes to choke off the strategic waterway.
The remarks from Netanyahu came as Iran delivered its response to the latest U.S. proposal to end the Iran war through Pakistani mediators on Sunday, but Trump rejected it on social media as “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!”—a fresh setback in efforts to end the standoff in the Persian Gulf that has disrupted shipping and pushed energy prices higher.
Iranian state television said Tehran rejected the U.S. proposal as surrender and instead demanded “war reparations by the U.S., full Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, an end to sanctions, and the release of seized Iranian assets.”
Washington’s proposal sought a deal to end the war, reopen the strait and roll back Iran’s nuclear program.
Netanyahu’s comments contrast with President Trump’s more confident public tone. Trump said in an interview aired Sunday that Iran was “militarily defeated” and argued the uranium could be removed “whenever we want.”
Trump’s post rejecting Iran’s response did not include details. In an earlier post, he accused Tehran of “playing games” with the United States for nearly 50 years, adding: “They will be laughing no longer!”
