President Donald Trump has said that the United States and Iran will jointly remove uranium from Tehran’s nuclear sites with excavators under any peace deal, before the material is transferred to US territory, AFP reports.

Trump’s comment came despite Iran’s foreign ministry saying earlier that the its stockpile of enriched uranium would not be transferred “anywhere”.

“Somebody said, how are we going to get the nuclear dust? We’re going to get it by going in with Iran, with lots of excavators,” Trump told a gathering of the conservative Turning Point USA movement in Phoenix, Arizona.

“We’re going to get it. We’re going to take it back home to the USA very soon.”