Ongoing negotiations between the United States and Iran have yet to resolve a key issue: what will happen to the enriched uranium currently held by a country engulfed in conflict. Beyond political considerations, there are also significant technical challenges, namely, how such material could be safely removed from Iran if an agreement is reached. Kazakhstan, however, has previously carried out a unique operation of this kind, later documented in detail through U.S. and Kazakh accounts, and has a long track record of constructive engagement in nuclear diplomacy.

The Uranium Question

The parties to the conflict, the United States, Israel, and Iran, remain deeply divided on core issues. Various countries, including Pakistan, have been involved as mediators. At the same time, the situation is complicated by broader military and economic tensions, including the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian oil exports and Iran’s continuing obstruction of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz dominates headlines, often diverting attention from the central issue: the fate of Iran’s uranium stockpile.

Axios reported that U.S. and Iranian negotiators had discussed a possible arrangement involving the release of frozen Iranian funds, with a figure of $20 billion under discussion. One U.S. official described that figure as a U.S. proposal, while U.S. President Donald Trump later denied that any money would change hands. IAEA-linked figures put Iran’s stockpile at about 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%, close to weapons-grade levels if further enriched.

Trump has expressed confidence that Iran will agree to a deal and that the uranium can be removed. Iranian officials, however, have rejected this claim, stating that they do not intend to transfer enriched uranium to the United States or any other country.

Tokayev’s Position

On April 17, 2026, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev addressed the issue during a diplomatic forum in Antalya, warning that excessive focus on trade routes and the Strait of Hormuz risks overshadowing the core problem, the nuclear issue.

“The essence of the problem lies in the proliferation of nuclear technologies and nuclear weapons. This must be the central topic of negotiations when it comes to the conflict around Iran,” Tokayev said.

Experts have since highlighted the complexity of the task facing policymakers: not only negotiating terms but physically removing enriched uranium from Iran. This would involve dealing with potentially damaged facilities, ensuring security, deploying specialist teams, defining transport routes, establishing international oversight, and determining a final destination for the material.

Against this backdrop, Tokayev’s remarks carry particular weight. While the United States is reported to be insisting not only on limiting future enrichment but also on transferring existing stockpiles, Iran is seeking to separate the nuclear issue from the broader regional crisis. Tokayev, by contrast, has emphasized that energy and shipping disruptions are symptoms of a deeper conflict, with the nuclear issue at its core.

Operation Sapphire

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan inherited the world’s fourth-largest nuclear arsenal, after Russia, the United States, and Ukraine. The country was also home to the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, where the USSR carried out its first nuclear test in 1949. Over the next four decades, the USSR conducted 456 nuclear tests at the site.

The risks associated with uncontrolled nuclear proliferation have therefore had particular resonance in Kazakhstan. The test site was closed in 1991, after decades of environmental and human impact.

After gaining independence, Kazakhstan voluntarily renounced its nuclear arsenal. In 1994, it facilitated the removal of highly enriched uranium to the United States under a complex operation known as “Operation Sapphire,” details of which have since been published in U.S. and Kazakh accounts, including KNB-linked archive material released in 2021.

The operation involved the removal of approximately 600 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, reportedly enriched to about 90% U-235, from the Ulba Metallurgical Plant in Ust-Kamenogorsk. It required highly sophisticated technical and logistical planning and was conducted under strict secrecy to prevent leaks and deter interest from non-state actors, including terrorist groups.

A Legacy of Nuclear Diplomacy

Kazakhstan has also played a direct role in diplomatic efforts related to Iran’s nuclear program. In 2013, Almaty hosted two rounds of negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group. While these talks did not produce a final agreement, they helped sustain the process that ultimately led to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

As part of the agreement’s implementation, Kazakhstan supplied Iran with 60 tons of natural uranium in exchange for the removal of low-enriched uranium from the country.

Although Kazakhstan did not play a leading role in the agreement, it served as a neutral platform and trusted partner. The country has built a strong international reputation for its commitment to nuclear non-proliferation. It maintains working relations with key stakeholders, including the United States, Iran, China, Russia, and Israel.

Lessons for Today

The situation in Iran is far more complex than Kazakhstan’s experience with Operation Sapphire, not least because Kazakhstan voluntarily relinquished its arsenal. The current Middle East crisis is broader in scope, involving multiple actors and potentially damaged or inaccessible nuclear facilities. For Iran, relinquishing nuclear materials would carry significant political costs.

Nevertheless, Kazakhstan’s experience offers a practical model for the safe removal of enriched uranium. Any future agreement with Iran will likely require either the removal or dilution of uranium while allowing the country to maintain access to peaceful nuclear energy.

The International Atomic Energy Agency would be expected to play a central role, and the involvement of a neutral country with a strong non-proliferation track record could help build trust. Notably, Kazakhstan hosts the IAEA Low Enriched Uranium Bank.

Tokayev’s remarks in Antalya serve as a reminder that discussions of trade routes or maritime disruptions must not overshadow the nuclear issue.

Any agreement will need to address practical questions: where the uranium will be stored, who will oversee the process, what Iran will receive in return, and which countries can serve as credible guarantors.

Kazakhstan may not be the only potential mediator, but its experience places it among the few nations that have successfully managed complex nuclear disarmament operations in practice. That experience could prove invaluable in de-escalating the current crisis.

Astana’s entry into the Abraham Accords is not the opening of a relationship with Israel so much as the re-platforming of one. Kazakhstan recognized Israel in the early 1990s and has maintained a functional, if understated, partnership since then. What has changed is the format. An existing bilateral channel is being placed inside diplomatic architecture with better access to political attention, private capital, and commercially useful networks.

Kazakhstan announced its intention to join the Accords on November 6, 2025, ahead of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s meeting with Donald Trump in Washington. The Times of Central Asia described Kazakhstan as the first Central Asian state and the only non-Middle Eastern or North African country to enter the framework. An official accession ceremony is still pending.

For Kazakhstan, the value lies not in symbolism but in the Accords’ convening power. The Accords make Kazakhstan more legible to Israeli technology firms, Gulf investors, American policymakers, and the growing ecosystem of institutions and policy platforms built around regional economic integration. For Astana, this is the practical utility of membership. It does not need the Accords to talk to Israel. It can use them to widen the circle around specific projects.

The formulation is also consistent with Kazakhstan’s foreign-policy habits. Astana has not presented the decision as a strategic turn against any other partner. Its Foreign Ministry said accession was made “solely in the interests of Kazakhstan,” and was consistent with a “balanced, constructive, and peaceful foreign policy.” The same statement reaffirmed support for a two-state settlement of the Middle East conflict.

That wording appears carefully calibrated. It allows Astana to engage with a Trump-associated diplomatic framework while presenting the decision as an extension of Kazakhstan’s established multi-vector foreign policy, not a departure from it. The better interpretation is additive multi-vectorism in the form of another channel, another table, and another set of possible transactions. A Times of Central Asia analysis made this point directly, arguing that Kazakhstan’s aims include converting symbolic capital into policy traction, developing Gulf co-financing, and preserving equilibrium with Moscow and Beijing.

The commercial agenda is already visible. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s January 2026 visit to Astana, the first by an Israeli foreign minister in 16 years, produced a package of institutional and economic steps. A Kazakhstan-Israel business forum ran alongside the official meetings, and the sides identified a project map covering high-tech agriculture, water management, digital technologies, artificial intelligence, infrastructure, logistics, energy efficiency, renewables, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals.

These sectors are not ornamental but match Kazakhstan’s own reform priorities of productivity, digital administration, non-resource growth, infrastructure modernization, and technology transfer. Israel’s appeal lies less in its market size than in its applied capability. Gulf participation, where available, adds scale and financing. The Accords can help package those elements into projects that are easier for companies, development institutions, and governments to recognize.

Energy and infrastructure may become the most consequential tests. The Times of Central Asia has argued that the Accords could give Israeli firms a clearer political and legal framework for work in Kazakhstan’s energy and infrastructure sectors, while Gulf Cooperation Council states, especially the UAE, could provide project finance. If that model works, the Accords become not a communiqué but a deal structure.

The April 27, 2026 visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Astana reinforced the same trajectory. Tokayev described Kazakhstan’s decision to join the Accords as a contribution to normalization between Middle Eastern countries and Israel, but his emphasis quickly moved to economic cooperation, the potential of which he called “extremely vast.” Herzog arrived with a delegation focused especially on technology. In expanded talks, Tokayev proposed holding an official accession ceremony in Astana, signaling that Kazakhstan sees itself not as a quiet entrant into the Accords but as a visible supporter and potential mediator in their expanding geography.

Platforms such as the N7 Initiative help explain why the Accords now have relevance beyond their original Arab-Israeli context. N7 has described Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan as a “new frontier” for the Accords, arguing that membership can provide access to a network organized around investment, prosperity, and broader cooperation with Israel and the United States. That framing suits Kazakhstan precisely because it is project-based rather than alliance-based.

For Astana, the promise of the Accords lies in their practical utility. They offer Kazakhstan another channel through which to connect Israeli technology, Gulf investment, and its own modernization agenda. The real dividend will come not from the ceremony, but from the partnerships, financing, and projects that follow.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has visited Astana for talks with Kazakhstan’s leadership, as the two countries prepare for a planned state visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin in late May.

Lavrov arrived in Kazakhstan on April 29. The main working part of the visit took place on April 30, with meetings with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Foreign Minister Yermek Kosherbayev. Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the agenda covered political, trade, economic, cultural, and humanitarian ties, as well as cooperation in the Eurasian Economic Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

At expanded talks in Astana, Kosherbayev said Russia remains one of Kazakhstan’s key trade partners. Bilateral trade exceeded $27 billion last year, and the two governments are working toward a target of $30 billion. Kosherbayev said the talks covered energy, transport, logistics, industry, digitalization, cultural ties, and international issues.

The foreign ministers signed a cooperation plan between the two ministries for 2027-2028 during the visit. Kosherbayev said the plan reflected close coordination between Astana and Moscow on bilateral and international issues.

The visit also comes ahead of Putin’s expected trip to Kazakhstan. The Kremlin said in February that Putin had confirmed his participation in the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council meeting in Astana in late May and accepted Tokayev’s invitation to make a state visit linked to the event.

For Kazakhstan, relations with Russia remain a central part of its multi-vector diplomacy, alongside growing ties with China, the European Union, Turkey, the Gulf states, and the United States. The two countries share a long border, have deep trade links, and work together through several regional organizations. Russia also remains central to Kazakhstan’s energy export network. The Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal near Novorossiysk handles roughly 80% of Kazakhstan’s crude exports.

That gives Astana a strong reason to keep stable ties with Moscow, but it also explains why Kazakhstan is pushing to diversify transport routes. The government has promoted the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, also known as the Middle Corridor, as a way to move freight between China, Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, the South Caucasus, and Europe with less reliance on Russian territory.

The war in Ukraine has made that approach harder to sustain. Kazakhstan has kept ties with Moscow, but Tokayev has also stressed the importance of the UN Charter, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. In a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on August 10, 2025, Tokayev said Kazakhstan supported the UN Charter, the inviolability of sovereign borders, and the territorial integrity of sovereign states.

Economic pressure has also grown. Western governments have increased scrutiny of trade routes that could be used to bypass sanctions on Russia. Kazakhstan has tried to protect its own trade from that pressure while avoiding a direct break with Moscow.

Energy adds another dimension. Any disruption to the CPC route can quickly become a national economic issue for Kazakhstan. In April, Kazakhstan’s energy ministry said CPC exports through the Black Sea remained stable after Russia reported a drone attack near Novorossiysk. The episode showed once again how Kazakhstan’s oil exports can be exposed to security events on Russian territory.

Lavrov’s visit, therefore, goes beyond routine diplomacy. It took place as Astana prepares for Putin’s state visit, manages sanctions risk, and tries to keep open several foreign policy tracks at once. Moscow wants to show it remains a central partner for Kazakhstan. Astana wants to keep that relationship stable without closing off its other options.

Lavrov’s visit showed how much of Kazakhstan’s Russia policy is still shaped by geography and infrastructure. Astana is building wider ties with other powers, but its oil exports, rail routes, border trade, and security contacts still run through or alongside Russia. That does not point to a rupture. It points to a relationship Kazakhstan cannot afford to mishandle.