Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Thursday asked the United States for the “immediate end” of negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, during a telephone interview with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, his services in Jerusalem indicated.
“Iran is making ‘nuclear blackmail’ a negotiating tactic and the answer to this must be the immediate end of negotiations and concrete measures by the great powers” against Tehran, Bennett argued during the exchange, according to a report. release of its services.
“Provocations” denounced by Israel
The prime minister referred more specifically to recent information indicating that Iran had further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to 20%, according to his services. He referred to “provocative violations on the part of Iran in the nuclear sector, which take place at the same time as the negotiations”, an Israeli source told AFP, without detailing these “provocations” .
Israel, considered the only nuclear power in the Middle East, fears that Iran, its sworn enemy, will soon become a country of the “nuclear threshold”, that is to say, having enough fuel to produce the bomb. atomic energy, and thus opposes the resumption of negotiations on nuclear power.
“Intolerable”
A “bad” deal with Iran would be “intolerable” for Israel, Mossad chief David Barnea said on Thursday at an internal Israeli intelligence service ceremony in Jerusalem, local media and recording said. obtained by AFP.
“It is clear that for civil reasons, uranium does not need to be enriched to 60%, that there is also no need to have three enrichment sites and thousands of active centrifuges. unless there is an intention to develop a nuclear weapon ”, continues Mr. Barnea in this address in Hebrew. Last April, Iran announced its decision to enrich uranium up to 60%, after an explosion at its Natanz plant blamed by Tehran on Israel.
Blinken is pessimistic
The head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken for his part displayed Thursday his pessimism about the possibility of saving the agreement, despite the resumption of negotiations in Vienna on Monday. “What Iran cannot do is maintain the status quo which amounts to developing its nuclear program while dragging its feet” at the negotiating table, he insisted. The head of Israeli diplomacy Yaïr Lapid also visited London and Paris earlier this week to try to influence the position of Western countries in favor of Israel.
Concluded between the Islamic Republic and the great powers (United States, Russia, China, France, Germany, United Kingdom), the 2015 agreement has been dead since the unilateral withdrawal of the United States in 2018 and the reinstatement of sanctions, urging Tehran in response to detach itself from most of its commitments. It offered Tehran the lifting of part of the sanctions stifling its economy in exchange for a drastic reduction in its nuclear program, placed under strict UN control.
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