Maxar's overview image of the Isfahan nuclear research centre shows visible damage to structures and nearby tunnel entrances from recent airstrikes.

• US President Donald Trump said obtaining Iran’s nuclear material would be difficult.
• He insisted that the stockpile of enriched uranium would ultimately be transferred to US territory.
• The US and Iran each warned they were ready for war.

US President Donald Trump said late on Monday that obtaining uranium from Iran would be “long” and “difficult” in the aftermath of last year’s US strikes on Tehran’s nuclear sites.

“Operation Midnight Hammer was a complete and total obliteration of the Nuclear Dust sites in Iran,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

He added: “Therefore, digging it out will be a long and difficult process.”

The US leader regularly uses the term “nuclear dust” to refer to Iran’s stock of enriched uranium, which the US accuses Iran of hoarding in order to make an atomic bomb.

But he has also sometimes used it to refer to material left from US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June 2025.

READ | Iran planning to boycott ceasefire talks over ‘unreasonable and unrealistic’ US demands

The 79-year-old president maintains Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium would ultimately be transferred to US territory, despite Iran’s foreign ministry denying any such plans.

The US and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran on 28 February to remove what Israel described as “the existential threat” posed by the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme.

Israeli officials say Tehran had stepped up efforts to acquire an atomic weapon since the end of the 12-day war in last June, which was launched by Israel and included US bombings of three nuclear facilities, including an enrichment plant.

The US and Iran each warned they were ready for war as the clock ticked down on Tuesday on a ceasefire, with uncertainty on talks that Trump had announced would resume in Pakistan.

The White House said Vice President JD Vance was ready to fly back to the Pakistani capital Islamabad, which was preparing for a second round of talks on ending the war that has engulfed the Middle East and shaken global markets.

But Tehran’s cleric-run government declined to confirm that it would participate and accused the US of violating the truce through its blockade of Iranian ports and seizure of a ship.

“By imposing a blockade and violating the ceasefire, Trump wants to turn this negotiating table into a surrender table or justify renewed hostilities, as he sees fit,” said Iran’s powerful parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who headed the delegations to talks two weeks ago in Pakistan.

“We do not accept negotiations under the shadow of threats, and in the last two weeks we have been preparing to show new cards on the battlefield,” he wrote on X.