As the United States' reentry to the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran increasingly appears to be a done deal, Israeli Ambassador to the US and the United Nations Gilad Erdan said Thursday that Israel would not be bound by any international agreement to which it was not a party.
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Erdan's comments came hours before he was slated to attend a meeting with Mossad director Yossi Cohen and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, which was expected to touch on the efforts to breathe new life into the Iran deal, The Times of Israel (TOI).
According to Erdan, although US President Joe Biden's administration is seeking to reenter the 2015 deal and bring Iran back to compliance, it accepts Israel's right to defend itself – a position that a high-level Israeli security delegation has driven home over several days of talks this week.
Israeli defense officials told their US counterparts that "the freedom of action of Israel to prevent Iran from becoming an existential threat is a freedom of action that will be preserved," Erdan said, adding that this was a demand that "the current government respects.
Erdan noted that Israel's self-defense needs, including against other regional threats, have been backed in recent White House statements.
Erdan maintained that Israel was committed to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons "in any way possible."
In a speech to Congress, Biden made little reference to Iran, other than to acknowledge that its and North Korea's nuclear program represented "a serious threat to America's security and the security of the world."
This article was first published by i24NEWS.
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