Israel’s prime minister on Sunday stepped up his calls for world powers to end the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran as US 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.
“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.
Netanyahu has repeatedly argued that the deal will not prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons capability after its restrictions expire in the next decade or so. Trump has voiced similar objections and hinted he will withdraw from the deal unless it is renegotiated.
Netanyahu did not accuse Iran of violating the deal. Instead, he said the deal, reached by the Obama administration, was so weak that Iran has no need to break it.
He said the flaws include permission for Iran to continue some low-level enrichment of uranium and its continued development of long-range missiles capable of delivering a bomb. He said the nuclear documents unveiled by Israel last week prove that Iran also pursued the know-how on how to develop and detonate a bomb.
“I say that a deal that enables Iran to keep and hide all its nuclear weapons know-how, is a horrible deal,” he said.
President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday Iran had plans to respond to any move by U.S. President Donald Trump on the 2015 nuclear agreement and the United States would regret a decision to exit the accord.
Trump says that unless European allies rectify "flaws" in Tehran's deal with world powers by May 12 he will refuse to extend U.S. sanctions relief for Iran.
"We have plans to resist any decision by Trump on the nuclear accord," Rouhani said in a speech carried live by state television.
"Orders have been issued to our atomic energy organisation ... and to the economic sector to confront America's plots against our country," Rouhani told a rally in northeast Iran.
"America is making a mistake if it leaves the nuclear accord," Rouhani said.
Britain, France and Germany remain committed to the nuclear accord but, in an effort to keep Washington in it, want to open talks on Iran’s ballistic missile programme, its nuclear activities beyond 2025 - when key provisions of the deal expire - and its wars in Syria and Yemen.
"We will not negotiate with anyone about our weapons and defences, and we will make and store as many weapons, facilities and missiles as we need," Rouhani said, reiterating a rejection by Iranian leaders of talks on Iran's missile programme which Tehran says is defensive.
In a magazine interview, French President Emmanuel Macron warned a decision by Trump to withdraw could lead to war.
"We would open the Pandora's box. There could be war," Macron told German weekly magazine Der Spiegel, adding "I don't think that Donald Trump wants war." Macron urged Trump not to withdraw when he met him in Washington late last month.
Trump has not told Israel whether he will change or scrap the deal, a senior Israeli intelligence official said on Sunday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes the deal, which he says only halts Iran's nuclear capability temporarily.
The official said Trump shared Israel's scepticism about the deal and voiced hope for new U.S. sanctions, noting the effect of past measures against Iran's banking and oil sector.
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