US President Barack Obama has rejected a call by Israel for any nuclear agreement with Iran to be conditional on Tehran’s recognition of Israel’s right to exist, branding it a “fundamental misjudgement.”
Speaking after Israel proposed its own terms for the accord, Obama told US radio network NPR on Monday that demands for Iran to recognize Israel go beyond the scope of the agreement.
“The notion that we would condition Iran not getting nuclear weapons in a verifiable deal on Iran recognizing Israel is really akin to saying that we won’t sign a deal unless the nature of the Iranian regime completely transforms,” he said in a drive to sell the deal to a hostile US Congress. “And that is, I think, a fundamental misjudgement.”
Israel’s government reacted angrily to the historic framework agreement on Iran’s nuclear program announced last week, with a final accord due by June 30.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday demanded that Iranian recognition of the Israel’s right to exist be written into the agreement.
Israeli Intelligence and Atomic Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz on Monday told journalists that while an earlier pledge by Obama to back Israel’s security was appreciated, it did not outweigh the potential threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.
“If Iran will produce nuclear weapons, this is an existential threat to Israel,” Steinitz said. “Nobody can tell us that backing and assistance are enough to completely resist or to neutralize such a threat.”
Steinitz proposed that the emerging deal between Iran and world powers incorporate a total halt to research and development on a new generation of centrifuges, a cut in the number of existing centrifuges and closure of the Fordo facility for enrichment of uranium.
He also proposed that Tehran detail its past nuclear arms research and allow international inspectors to make spot checks “anywhere, anytime.”
If such terms were accepted, Steinitz said, “it will not be a good agreement, but it will be a more reasonable agreement.”
Under the outline deal, the US and the EU are to lift all nuclear-related sanctions on Iran in exchange for a 98 percent cut in Iran’s stocks of highly enriched uranium for 15 years, while its unfinished Arak reactor will not produce weapons-grade plutonium.
The deal will also see Iran reduce by about two-thirds — to 6,104 from about 19,000 — the number of uranium centrifuges which can make fuel for nuclear power, but also the core of a nuclear bomb.
Saudi Arabia on Monday said that it hoped any future deal could bolster peace in the region and end Iranian interference in Arab affairs.
A statement after a weekly Cabinet meeting chaired by Saudi King Salman said Saudi Arabia “hopes the agreement will reinforce security and stability in the region and the world.”
It insisted that security hinged on “the respect of the principle of good neighborly relations and non-interference in Arab affairs,” the Saudi Press Agency said.
Arab states accuse Iran of fueling a series of proxy battles in the Middle East.
Obama has invited leaders of the several Gulf states to Camp David in the near future in a bid to assuage their concerns.
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