A renewed nuclear deal between Iran and world powers is “off the table” for the foreseeable future, President Joe Biden told Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid, according to a report in Hebrew media.
Biden and other administration officials conveyed the message in a series of recent conversations with the Israeli premier, Zman Yisrael said.
If the nuclear deal is not signed, it would be viewed as the crowning achievement of Lapid’s short term as prime minister, as Israel gears up for its fifth round of elections in just over three years this November.
According to the report, the latest draft, drawn up by the deal’s European partners, was nixed over Iran’s insistence that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) cease monitoring three undeclared nuclear sites after uranium traces were discovered there.
Israel has put pressure on the U.S. to ensure that the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog continues its monitoring as part of a renewed deal.
Veteran Israel reported Barak Ravid cited Biden administration officials as saying that Iran would need to surrender all uranium enriched to 20% and 60% as part of the agreement in addition to transferring its centrifuges to a warehouse in Iran that would be under IAEA supervision.
Iran would also be required to commit not to process plutonium, which could be used to make a bomb.
Mossad director David Barnea said recently that the newly drafted nuclear deal is a “strategic disaster” that is “based on lies.”
“The agreement is a bad deal that gives Iran a license to manufacture a bomb,” Barnea was quoted by Hebrew media as saying.
Israel has repeatedly stressed that it is not obligated by the deal and would act militarily to stop Iran’s nuclear program if needed.
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