Israel's Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Tuesday he is not opposed to a "good" nuclear deal between Iran and world powers but voiced skepticism that such an outcome would emerge from the current negotiations.
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Bennett spoke a day after negotiators from Iran and five world powers resumed talks in Vienna on restoring Tehran's tattered 2015 nuclear deal. He reiterated that Israel was not bound by any accord, leaving it room to maneuver militarily.
"At the end of the day, of course, there can be a good deal," Bennett told Army Radio. "Is that, at the moment, under the current dynamic, expected to happen? No, because a much harder stance is needed."
Bennett also denied claims by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he had agreed to a policy of "no surprises" with Washington, meaning that it would be frank about its military intentions regarding Iran with its prime ally and thus be potentially hobbled.
"Israel will always maintain its right to act and will defend itself by itself," he said.
Israel has watched with concern as European nations, Russia, and China have restarted talks with Iran in recent weeks. Tehran has taken a hard stance in the negotiations, suggesting everything discussed in previous rounds of diplomacy could be renegotiated and demanding sanctions relief even as it ramps up its nuclear program.
Bennett has urged negotiators to tow a firmer line against Iran. Israel is not a party to the talks but has engaged in a blitz of diplomacy on the sidelines in an attempt to sway allies to put more pressure on Iran to rein in its nuclear program.
It says it wants an improved deal that places tighter restrictions on Iran's nuclear program and addresses Iran's long-range missile program and its support for hostile proxies along Israel's borders.
Israel also says that the negotiations must be accompanied by a "credible" military threat to ensure that Iran does not delay indefinitely.
In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told state TV that a "quick and proper agreement in the near future" is possible if the other parties to the negotiations demonstrate "seriousness alongside goodwill."
Amirabdollahian said talks in Vienna "are progressing well, and we are determined to negotiate points of contention."
The United States on Tuesday expressed caution over upbeat comments by Iran and Russia about talks in Vienna to salvage the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, saying it was still too soon to say if Tehran had returned to the negotiations with a constructive approach.
Iran and Russia both gave upbeat views on Tuesday about talks that kicked off this week to salvage Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with global powers, although Western nations have said the negotiations are going too slowly.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said a deal was possible in the near future if other parties showed "good faith" while Russian envoy Mikhail Ulyanov said a working group was making "indisputable progress" in the eighth round of talks.
Speaking at a telephonic press briefing, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said there was some progress in the last round of talks but it was too soon to tell whether Tehran, in the current round, returned to the table to build on those gains.
"It's really too soon to tell whether Iran has returned with a more constructive approach to this round," Price said. "We are now assessing, in the course of these talks, whether the Iranians came back with an agenda of new issues or preliminary solutions to the ones already presented," Price said.
The original agreement lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its atomic activities but Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the deal in 2018, a year after he became US president. Iran later breached many of the deal's nuclear restrictions and kept pushing well beyond them.
The latest round of indirect talks between Iran and the United States resumed on Monday in Vienna, with Tehran focused on getting US sanctions lifted again, as they were under the original bargain, despite scant progress on reining in its atomic activities.
Iran refuses to meet US officials directly, meaning other parties to the deal besides the United States and Iran – Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany, and the European Union – must shuttle between the two sides.
The seventh round of talks, the first under Iran's new hard-liner President Ebrahim Raisi, ended 11 days ago after some new Iranian demands were added to a working text.
"The Vienna talks are headed in a good direction," Iranian Minister Amirabdollahian said in comments to reporters broadcast by state media. "We believe that if other parties continue the round of talks which just started with good faith, reaching a good agreement for all parties is possible."
The US delegation, led by Special Envoy Rob Malley, will be in a better position in the coming days to determine whether Iran has to come to the latest round of talks with a 'fundamentally different position," Price said.
"The negotiation is urgent - and our teams are here to work swiftly and in good faith towards getting a deal."
Ulyanov, the Russian envoy, said on Tuesday that a working group was making progress. "Sanctions lifting is being actively discussed in informal settings," he wrote on Twitter.
Tehran's landmark 2015 accord granted Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. In 2018, then-President Donald Trump withdrew America from the deal and imposed sweeping sanctions on Iran. The other signatories have struggled to keep the agreement alive.
Meanwhile, European negotiators said some technical progress had been made in the last round of talks to accommodate Iranian requests but warned that the parties only had weeks, not months, to salvage the deal.
France, Germany, and the United Kingdom said in a statement on Tuesday that technical progress had been made in the last round and the parties now needed to fully focus on the key outstanding issues, particularly nuclear and sanctions. t
They said while they were not setting an artificial deadline, there were "weeks, not months" left to strike a deal, and that "this negotiation is urgent."
"We are clear that we are nearing the point where Iran's escalation of its nuclear program will have completely hollowed out" the agreement, they added. "That means we have weeks, not months, to conclude a deal before the (deal's) core non-proliferation benefits are lost."
The negotiators said they "take note" of comments by the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran that the Islamic Republic will not enrich beyond 60% purity.
"However, it is still the case that enrichment at 60% is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons," they said. "Its increasing 60% stockpile is bringing Iran significantly closer to having fissile material which could be used for nuclear weapons."
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