Amid news regarding possible US-Iran dean on the latter’s nuclear program, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he opposes any such agreement.
This Sunday morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a cabinet meeting at the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem that he is against any interim agreement that is reportedly being negotiated between the United States and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program.
It was first Israel’s Hayom that reported of a “political ceasefire” between the US and Iran and their efforts to reach an interim agreement over Iran’s nuclear program. According to the report, the Biden administration is supposed to release funds and stop tightening sanctions against Iran, and in exchange, the Islamic Republic would agree to keep its enrichment levels at below 60 percent as well as to avoid any possible attacks on Americans and their interests in the region. The report also said that the sides were discussing reciprocal prisoner releases as well.
Netanyahu said Israel had informed Washington that “the most limited understandings, what are termed ‘mini-agreements’, do not – in our view – serve the goal and we are opposed to them as well.”.
Netanyahu opposed the 2015 deal between Iran and world powers known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which was signed in US by the Obama administration that sought to limit in Iran’s nuclear program. He was a major supporter of President Donald Trump’s 2018 decision to withdraw from the deal, which left it in shambles.
Israel believes that Iran is planning, or at least considering, to build nuclear weapons and the high levels of uranium enrichment is for this very purpose that Tehran is pursuing. Iran, however, strongly denies any efforts to go nuclear and Iranian officials have asserted several times now and then that the country’s nuclear program is meant only for civilian purposes. Under such claims, Israel has attacked Iran’s nuclear sites many times during the past ten years and has also assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists.
More opposing voices against US-Iran’s possible nuke deal
Echoing the same concerns as Netanyahu’s, US retired Army Gen. Jack Keane said on Sunday that inking a new nuclear agreement with Iran would not be in line with national interests of the United States.
“To give them another windfall of cash like we did as a result of the 2015 nuclear deal, which led to an expansion of their proxy wars in the Middle East, it doesn’t make any sense. No, it’s not a good deal. It wasn’t a good deal in 2015. It’s not a good deal now. It’s not in our national interest,” Kane said speaking to ‘Fox News Sunday’.
Kane also noted that by relieving Iran’s sanctions, the Biden administration would “fuel proxy wars as Iran is seeking domination and control in the Middle East”.
Is Washington lying to Tel Aviv?
Although several reports from Israeli news outlets warned during the past two weeks of US being involved in efforts to conclude an interim nuclear deal with Iran, Washington denies everything in this regard.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller last week rejected reports that the Biden administration has reached an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program. However, he confirmed that the US had allowed Iraq to transfer $2.76 billion in backlogged gas and electricity payments to Iran.
“We approved a transaction, consistent with previous transactions that have been approved, to allow Iran to access funds held in accounts in Iraq for humanitarian and other non-sanctionable transactions,” Miller said.
