Prime Minister Yair Lapid urged President Joe Biden and Western powers Wednesday to call off an emerging nuclear deal with Iran, saying that negotiators are letting Tehran manipulate the talks and that an agreement would reward terrorism.
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"The countries of the West draw a red line, the Iranians ignore it, and the red line moves," Lapid told reporters at a press conference in Jerusalem. An emerging deal, he said, "does not meet the standards set by President Biden himself: preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear state."
Biden has been eager to revive the 2015 deal, which offered sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on the Islamist Republic's nuclear program. The original deal unraveled after then-President Donald Trump withdrew from it in 2018 and reimposed sanctions.
Video: Government Press Office
It remains unclear whether the United States and Iran will be able to reach a new agreement. But the Biden administration is expected to weigh in on Iran's latest offer in the coming days. With an agreement appearing close, Israel has stepped up its efforts to block it.
Lapid warned that Iran would divert billions of dollars in unfrozen funds to hostile militant groups, such as Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon, that threaten Israel.
"This money will fund the Revolutionary Guard," he said. "It will fund more attacks on American bases in the Middle East. It will be used to strengthen Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad ...
"The Iranians are making demands again. The negotiators are ready to make concessions, again," Lapid said.
He was careful to repeat that Biden, who visited Israel last month during a trip through the Middle East, remains a strong ally.
Israel's national security adviser, Eyal Hulata, is in Washington this week for talks with Biden administration officials, and Defense Minister Benny Gantz took off for the US early Thursday morning for meetings with the head of the US military's Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
In remarks before his departure, Gantz said, "The purpose of the visit is to convey a clear message regarding the negotiations between world powers and Iran on the nuclear agreement: A pact that will not set Iran's capabilities back years and will not leave it limited for many years to come – it is an agreement that will harm global and regional security."
Israel has long said it would not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, and that it was not bound by the agreements between world powers and Tehran. It also has called for diplomacy to be accompanied by a "credible" threat to take military action against the Islamist Republic if needed.
"We are not prepared to live with a nuclear threat above our heads from an extremist, violent Islamist regime," Lapid said. "This will not happen. Because we will not let it happen."
Israel Hayom has learned that negotiations between the US and Iran in recent months have not focused on making the original pact, which Israel already considered harmful, more stringent, but are working on a more flexible deal.
Sources said that the parties seem to have reached an agreement on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps but not on the matter of International Atomic Energy Agency inspections and a US guarantee that no future administration will withdraw from the deal.
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With regard to the IRGC, Washington has apparently accepted a proposal according to which the group will remain on the US foreign terror group list, but its infrastructure and construction hub – Khatam al-Anbiya – will be exempt from sanctions. This means that international companies will be able to conduct business with the Revolutionary Guards.
The Iranians are demanding extensive financial guarantees from the Americans and apparently from the Europeans as well, in order to ensure that they will not be financially affected by the reinstatement of the sanctions and to deter the US from withdrawing from the deal again. As of now, Washington turned down the demand, and there are said to be legal obstacles to such a concession.
With regard to the IAEA inspections, negotiations over the matter are expected to continue. The nuclear agency demands answers from Iran with regard to uranium traces found at three of its undeclared sites, whereas the Islamist Republic demands an end to the probes.
This issue is particularly important to Iran as these violations are not part of the nuclear pact, but of Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and if found guilty, Tehran could be subject to sanctions regardless of whether or not it renews the nuclear deal with Western powers.
