Trump says recovery of Iran's enriched uranium will require 'long and difficult process'

US President Donald Trump said Monday that the retrieval of Iran's enriched uranium stockpile will require a "long and difficult process."

"Operation Midnight Hammer was a complete and total obliteration of the Nuclear Dust sites in Iran," Trump said, referring to the June 2025 strikes he ordered on Iran's nuclear facilities. The US president has long maintained that the attacks "obliterated" Iran's nuclear program, and has recently referred to the uranium stockpile as "dust."

"Therefore, digging it out will be a long and difficult process," he added.

The remarks come ahead of potential high-level talks in Pakistan.

Trump announced on Sunday that US representatives would fly to Islamabad for negotiations, though Tehran has yet to officially confirm its participation and demanded the lifting of the US blockade on the Strait of Hormuz.

Pakistan hosted the first direct high-level US-Iran engagement in Islamabad on April 11-12, the first such contact since the two countries severed diplomatic ties in 1979, but the talks ended without a breakthrough.