Britain’s foreign minister, Boris Johnson, said Netanyahu’s presentation “underlines the importance” of keeping the deal, with its tough constraints on Iran, in place. In 2012, he even drew a cartoon nuclear bomb while addressing the 67th United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters in NY, to show Iran was on the “final stage” of its nuclear program.
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Netanyahu, like Trump, has also opposed the nuclear agreement since its inception.
Others briefed on the material in March included Mike Pompeo, who was then Central Intelligence Agency director and is now secretary of state; Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and former White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, a former USA official said. The United States and European Union could state their intent to apply sanctions on Iran if it tests ballistic missiles, continues destabilizing its neighbors, dramatically expands the number of working centrifuges, or attempts to weaponize its nuclear program at any point in the future.
Trump has yet to say whether he will withdraw from it. “The Iran nuclear deal is not based on trust about Iran’s intentions; rather it is based on tough verification”, he said.
France’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that an Israeli intelligence haul on Iran’s past nuclear weapons programme could form the basis of a push for long-term assurances on Tehran’s nuclear activities.
Meanwhile, as we reported yesterday, the Syrian army said early on Monday that “enemy” rockets struck military bases belonging to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime. “Now I have to raise the question: did they really comply with these requirements?”
“I didn’t really learn anything new that the IAEA hasn’t said publicly before”, says James Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
In recent years “we have developed an open, transparent and clear dialogue with Russian Federation, even when our opinions and views differed”, Liberman said of Israel’s relations with Moscow.
A decision by Trump to end US sanctions relief would all but sink the agreement and could trigger a backlash by Iran, which could resume its nuclear arms program or “punish” USA allies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, diplomats said.
“Iran lied, big time”, he said in a televised statement from Israel, displaying a trove of files comprising 55,000 pages of documents and 183 CDs he called an “atomic archive”. However, with the May 12 deadline looming, the Israeli leader ramped up his anti-Iran rhetoric with a PowerPoint presentation, the gist of which was, “Iran lied”.
“If and when the United States pulls out of the agreement, that would mean there is no deal left because one of the key signatories to the agreement has breached provisions of the agreement”, said the top diplomat. At least one Iranian cargo jet was tracked by the Pentagon on the same route, according to a report by CNN. Heinonen adds that the documents shown by Netanyahu appear to be authentic, and are consistent with information contained in some unpublicized documents obtained by the IAEA when it was investigating the Iranian program.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Israel is preparing for a possible war with Iran. Hatami called Netanyahu’s accusations “baseless”.
When asked about whether pulling out of the Iran agreement would damage U.S. relations with Europe, Pompeo said the United States was “working diligently to fix this thing” with its European allies.
Russian Federation stood by the current deal, rejecting any push to update or change the JCPOA.
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The blow follows months of back-and-forth incursions, including attempted drone attacks from Syria into Israeli territory and Israeli airstrikes in response.
