Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid vowed Monday that Israel will do whatever it believes necessary to prevent Iran from approaching nuclear weapons capabilities, saying that the Jewish state will not consider itself bound by any new nuclear deal reached in talks at Vienna.
Speaking at the 40th Jerusalem conference of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Lapid slammed former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach towards the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, arguing that he had been too confrontational with the Obama administration, isolating Democrats.
“Restoring…the bipartisan stature of Israel in Washington. We are working very good with this administration on many issues: the Abraham Accords, the economy, Syria, a lot of security issues.”
“On the JCPOA, we disagree, but we disagree in a manner that helps us work with them on the results of the disagreement, and on other issues.”
“The return to the JCPOA is a return to a weaker agreement, just because of the time,” Lapid continued, referencing the ‘sunset’ clause of the 2015 nuclear deal, by which certain restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program are set to expire 10 years after the deal’s signing.
The agreement now under discussion in Vienna, Lapid argued, “is a weaker deal, even if it is the same deal, and we were unhappy with the deal to begin with.”
“But there is a dialogue with the American administration about several issues that are surrounding this agreement.”
“The Iranians are now asking for a cancellation of the declaration of the Revolutionary Guard as a terror organization.”
Lapid noted that the Israeli government is using its influence with the Biden administration to push back against the Iranian demand.
“We’ve also maintained our ability, publicly, to say: ‘You signed the agreement; we didn’t sign the agreement. It doesn’t oblige us. And we are going to do whatever we think is necessary to make sure that Iran doesn’t become a threshold country.”