Israeli PM steps up call to end the Iranian nuclear deal

Netanyahu extended his push to get world leaders to fix or nix the Iran nuclear deal.

By: AP and World Israel News Staff

Israel’s prime minister on Sunday stepped up his calls for world powers to end the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran as President Donald Trump decides whether to withdraw from the agreement by next week.

In a briefing to foreign reporters, Benjamin Netanyahu said the world would be better off without any deal than with what he called the “fatally flawed” agreement reached in 2015.

Netanyahu said Israel is sharing a trove of confiscated Iranian nuclear documents with the six world powers that signed the deal, as well as other countries, in hopes of mounting further opposition to the deal. He heads to Moscow later this week for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, where talks will focus on the Iranian nuclear program and Iran’s involvement in neighboring Syria.

Deal must be ‘fully fixed or fully nixed’

“I said it from the start, it has to be either fully fixed or fully nixed,” Netanyahu said. “But if you do nothing to this deal, if you keep it as is, you will end up with Iran with a nuclear arsenal in a very short time.”

Netanyahu was a vocal opponent of the deal when it was reached during the Obama administration. The agreement lifted painful economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

This past Friday he spoke by phone with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and British Prime Minister Theresa May regarding the evidence obtained by Israel’s intelligence agency pertaining to Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The calls are part of Netanyahu’s diplomatic push to get the Iran nuclear deal revised or canceled.

The prime minister’s office stated that the leaders discussed “regional issues and [Netanyahu] also updated them on the important material that he revealed regarding the Iranian nuclear archive.”

These conversations followed discussions Netanyahu had on the previous Monday with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

On that same day, Netanyahu unveiled a trove of more than 100,000 documents obtained by the Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, from a secret warehouse in southern Tehran.

In a speech aimed at the international community and delivered in English, the prime minister showed photographs of classified maps, charts, photographs, blueprints, videos and more documenting the Islamic Republic’s weapons development program, called Project Amad.

The European leaders have been maintaining that the Iran nuclear agreement, signed in 2015, was the best option available to counter the nuclear threat and have been urging President Donald Trump not to dismantle the deal.

Israel views Iran as an existential threat and continues to urge the other signatory states to “fix or nix” the 2015 agreement.

Amad ProjectIranIran nuclear dealIsraeli diplomacyNetanyahu