Overview
- U.S. envoys led by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited Oak Ridge this week to meet nuclear experts and to prepare a roughly 100-person technical team to draft implementation steps if a political understanding is reached.
- Negotiators report progress toward a memorandum of understanding but remain split on a core implementation issue: Washington seeks about 60 days for enrichment rollback while Tehran wants roughly 90 days.
- A separate major sticking point is when and how frozen Iranian assets would be released, with U.S. officials saying funds should flow after verifiable steps and Iranian interlocutors pressing for earlier access.
- Parallel diplomacy on the Lebanon–Israel front is active but fragile because Lebanon’s weak institutional control and Hezbollah’s role limit the country’s ability to deliver on any security commitments.
- Other concurrent developments include a growing U.S.–UAE economic and AI partnership tied to a $1.4 trillion UAE investment plan, large protests in Albania over a Kushner-linked resort project, and Kalshi freezing George Santos’s account as regulators and the DOJ investigate.