By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin By — Geoff Bennett Geoff Bennett By — Sonia Kopelev Sonia Kopelev Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/iran-says-it-will-continue-uranium-enrichment-despite-u-s-strikes-on-nuclear-facilities Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Audio Iran's nuclear program led to a direct military confrontation with the U.S. last month. Now, the Islamic Republic is trying to stabilize its nation, its program and its negotiating stance with the West. Nick Schifrin was among a group of reporters who sat down in New York with Iran's top nuclear negotiator. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. Geoff Bennett: Iran's nuclear program led to direct military confrontation against Iran last month from Israel and the U.S. Now the Islamic Republic is trying to stabilize its nation, its program, and its negotiating stance with the West.Our Nick Schifrin was among a group of reporters who sat down in New York this morning with Iran's top nuclear negotiator. And he's here with us now.So, Nick, what did he have to say? Nick Schifrin: The bottom line is that Iran is maintaining its insistence on enriching uranium domestically, and that is the core of what the president and his administration is trying to prevent.The briefing this morning in New York, as you said, Geoff, was from Kazem Gharibabadi, one of Iran's deputy foreign ministers. He laid out a hard line, as expected perhaps, before Iran and Europe meet next at the end of this week for the first time since the war. He said that Iran was — quote — "more determined" than before the war to maintain its right to enrich domestically, that he would not accept a regional consortium of enrichment outside of Iran, as the Trump administration has raised.He said Iran did not trust the U.S. to resume any kind of direct negotiations. He also said there was no Iranian formal assessment of the impact of those U.S. strikes on the nuclear facilities, even though his boss, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, earlier this week admitted that those strikes — quote — "seriously damaged" the facilities.But he did say that a technical team from the Iran nuclear watchdog would soon be in Iran to talk about possible future verification. Geoff Bennett: Yes. Listen to this Segment Watch Watch the Full Episode PBS NewsHour from Jul 23, 2025 By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin is PBS NewsHour’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Correspondent. He leads NewsHour’s daily foreign coverage, including multiple trips to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion, and has created weeklong series for the NewsHour from nearly a dozen countries. The PBS NewsHour series “Inside Putin’s Russia” won a 2017 Peabody Award and the National Press Club’s Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence. In 2020 Schifrin received the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Arthur Ross Media Award for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis of Foreign Affairs. He was a member of the NewsHour teams awarded a 2021 Peabody for coverage of COVID-19, and a 2023 duPont Columbia Award for coverage of Afghanistan and Ukraine. Prior to PBS NewsHour, Schifrin was Al Jazeera America's Middle East correspondent. He led the channel’s coverage of the 2014 war in Gaza; reported on the Syrian war from Syria's Turkish, Lebanese and Jordanian borders; and covered the annexation of Crimea. He won an Overseas Press Club award for his Gaza coverage and a National Headliners Award for his Ukraine coverage. From 2008-2012, Schifrin served as the ABC News correspondent in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2011 he was one of the first journalists to arrive in Abbottabad, Pakistan, after Osama bin Laden’s death and delivered one of the year’s biggest exclusives: the first video from inside bin Laden’s compound. His reporting helped ABC News win an Edward R. Murrow award for its bin Laden coverage. Schifrin is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a board member of the Overseas Press Club Foundation. He has a Bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and a Master of International Public Policy degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). @nickschifrin By — Geoff Bennett Geoff Bennett Geoff Bennett serves as co-anchor and co-managing editor of PBS News Hour. He also serves as an NBC News and MSNBC political contributor. @GeoffRBennett By — Sonia Kopelev Sonia Kopelev