US, Iran edge towards nuclear deal as Israel warns it cedes too much to Tehran

Western diplomats see a path to an agreement, but Israel’s PM says it gives Iran a route to a nuclear weapon.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid briefs the foreign media about Iran on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

As Washington and Tehran edge closer to restoring the nuclear deal, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid has attacked the agreement being negotiated, saying it would not stop Iran developing the atomic bomb and would hand Tehran a significant financial boon.

Talks toward a deal, which lifted most international sanctions on Iran in exchange for tight but temporary restrictions on its nuclear program, appeared close to collapse in recent months, but US, Iranian and ­European officials say an agreement now looks possible.

Mr Lapid has until recently taken a careful approach in public comments about the deal and pledged not to lobby the US against its revival. But in his strongest comments against the deal since coming to office in July, he on Wednesday accused the US and its European allies of shifting their negotiating red lines to prevent the talks from collapsing. “Israel is not against any agreement. We are against this agreement, because it is a bad one,” he said. “In our eyes, it does not meet the standards set by President (Joe) Biden himself: preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear state.”

The US, Iran and other participants in the 2015 deal – known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – are seeking to agree on the steps that Tehran and Washington would take to return to compliance with the agreement.

Donald Trump withdrew the US from it in 2018 and Tehran started to expand its nuclear program a year later.

Iran says its nuclear activity is for purely civilian purposes and the Biden administration has set restoring the agreement as a key foreign-policy goal.

Since negotiations in Vienna early this month, Western and Iranian officials have said some of the final obstacles have been removed.

With the window closing for Israel to influence the US decision, Israeli national security adviser Eyal Hulata met with his US counterpart, Jake Sullivan, at the White House on Tuesday.

Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz is slated to meet with senior US officials in Washington later this week.

Mr Lapid, who faces elections in November, said on Wednesday the agreement would be worth $US100bn ($144bn) annually to the Iranian government, which could use the money to fund its militant proxies in the region, threatening both Israeli and American sites in the region.

On Tuesday night, the US military said it had struck ammunition and logistics bunkers in northeast Syria used by groups affiliated with Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in retaliation for attacks American military officials have blamed on Iran-backed groups.

After the recent talks in Vienna, the EU, which chairs the ­negotiations, circulated what it called a final text of an agreement, asking the parties to respond as to whether they would accept it. Iran replied last week raising several issues, including demands for stronger economic guarantees. However, Western officials said they were encouraged that Tehran was no longer demanding the immediate lifting of terrorism sanctions on the IRGC. They were also pleased that Iran seemed to have trimmed its call for an upfront guarantee that the UN atomic agency would close a probe into Tehran’s nuclear program.

Iran received and was examining Washington’s responses on Wednesday, according to the Iranian Foreign Ministry. People familiar with the negotiations said Washington’s response largely dismissed Iran’s demands and that Tehran must now decide whether it will take the deal essentially unchanged.

There is little appetite for fresh face-to-face negotiations in Western capitals, and the Biden administration could decide to shelve the diplomacy until after the mid-term elections in November.

On Wednesday, Mr Lapid repeated the threat that since his government is not party to the deal, it would not feel obliged to refrain from action against Iran’s nuclear program.

The Wall Street Journal