SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
Israeli PM meets US national security adviser on Iran
Jerusalem, Dec 22 (AFP) Dec 22, 2021
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett held talks with the US national security adviser Wednesday, as Israel reaffirmed its opposition to negotiations on reviving a 2015 agreement on Iran's nuclear programme.

Jake Sullivan landed in Israel late Tuesday and met with President Isaac Herzog, who voiced "concern with Iran's progress toward nuclear weapons under the cover of the negotiations in Vienna", the president's office said.

Israel has criticised talks in Vienna to restore the 2015 deal negotiated between Tehran and major powers that saw Iran agree to curbs on its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has called for the negotiations to be halted, accusing Iran of "nuclear blackmail" and charging that revenue it gained from sanctions relief would be used to acquire weapons to harm Israelis.

Ahead of Sullivan's visit, a senior US administration official told reporters that Iran will "be very high on the agenda" for the Israel trip, during which Sullivan is also scheduled to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the occupied West Bank.

Lead US Iran negotiator Rob Malley told CNN Tuesday that there are only "some weeks" left to revive the deal if Tehran continues its nuclear activities at the current pace.

Negotiations to restore the pact known as the Joint Collective Plan of Action resumed in November.

Washington was a party to the original agreement, but withdrew under president Donald Trump in 2018.

President Joe Biden's administration has warned it may soon be too late to revive the JCPOA.

"It really depends on the pace of their nuclear process," said Malley, the US special envoy for Iran.

"If they halt the nuclear advances, we have more time.

"If they continue at their current pace, we have some weeks left but not much more than that, at which point the conclusion will be there's no deal to be revived," he said.

Iran says it only wants to develop a civil nuclear programme but Western powers say its stockpile of enriched uranium goes well beyond that, and could be used to develop a weapons capability.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
Perseverance rover cleared for long distance Mars exploration
Possible "superkilonova" exploded not once but twice
Origami style lunar rover wheel expands to climb steep caves

24/7 Energy News Coverage
The Quantum Age will be Powered by Fusion
Physicists map axion production paths inside deuterium tritium fusion reactors
Hybrid excitons speed ultrafast energy transfer at 2D organic interface

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
SDA expands Tracking Layer satellite awards and related missile defense contracts
Space Systems Command activates System Delta 80 for assured space access
Rheinmetall ICEYE Space Solutions to provide SAR reconnaissance data to German military

24/7 News Coverage
Philosopher argues AI consciousness may remain unknowable
Climate driven model explores Neanderthal and modern human overlap in Iberia
Economic losses from natural disasters down by a third in 2025: Swiss Re



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.