An interim deal on Iran’s nuclear weapons program is under discussion that would not roll back uranium enrichment, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan told The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York.
“The real bad news is that apparently there is an interim agreement that is being discussed these days with Iran,” Erdan said. It “would put the Iranian nuclear program on hold but won’t roll back the enriched uranium or the nuclear faculties of Iran and in exchange, they will get economic benefits,” he added.
He spoke just days after National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer met with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at the White House to discuss Iran’s drive to produce atomic bombs at a time when Tehran has enriched uranium to close to weapons trade.
Israel fears that the United States still wants to strike a diplomatic deal with Iran that would partially revive the defunct 2015 deal between the six world powers and Tehran. The Biden administration has dismissed that possibility in light of Moscow’s military ties with Tehran and its use of Iranian-made drones against Ukraine.
Israel fears the US is working on an interim deal
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan at the Jerusalem Post 2023 Annual Conference in New York, June 5, 2023 (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)Israel fears that in spite of this alliance, the US is working on an interim deal. During a public interview at the conference with Senior Contributing Editor and Diplomatic Correspondent Lahav Harkov he spoke about the danger of Tehran’s nuclear program and the international community’s failure to stop its advancement to producing an atomic bomb.
“The international community has failed, totally failed to block Iran from advancing itself to becoming a nuclear threshold state,” Erdan said.
“What we have been seeing in the last year proves that everything that Israel has been saying has been proven correct. The audacity of Iran has crossed any red lines,” Erdan said.
Israel has long instated that stiff international sanctions would help sway Tehran to abandon its program. Erdan said that unfortunately the only ones under consideration were related “to Iran transferring weapons to Russia in order to murder Ukrainian civilians.”
He added that “I do not see any sanctions that are being discussed and might be imposed against the nuclear program of Iran.”
“This is not the way to deter Iran. We always believed that the only formula to deter Iran’ which is a “rogue and ruthless regime” is through a credible military threat,” Erdan said.
“The positive news is that we are working to develop these military capabilities to stop Iran if needed,” said Erdan adding that, on this front “there is a full military coordination between Israel and the United States.”
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