Israeli Leaders Condemn Iran Nuclear Agreement
JERUSALEM, April 3 (UPI) — Israeli leaders were critical of the framework agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, some threatening military action against Iran.
The deal between Western powers and Iran calls for intense scrutiny to ensure Iran’s nuclear capability does not include preparations for building nuclear weapons, in exchange for lifting of economic sanctions.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said of Thursday’s announcement, “This deal would legitimize Iran’s nuclear program, bolster Iran’s economy, and increase Iran’s aggression and terror throughout the Middle East and beyond. Such a deal would not block Iran’s path to the bomb. It would pave it. It would increase the risks of nuclear proliferation in the region and the risks of a horrific war.”
An Israeli official close to Netanyahu later reiterated the points, saying the agreement reached in Lausanne, Switzerland, offered “no demand that Iran stop its aggression in the region, its terrorism around the world or its threats to destroy Israel, which it has repeated again over the past several days,” Time reported. The official was referring to comments Tuesday by Iranian Revolutionary guard leader Mohammad Reza Naqdi, who said that “erasing Israel off the map” was a “non-negotiable” goal.
A political opponent of Netanyahu’s in Israel, Omer Bar-Lev, said one point in the agreement, a one-year “breakout time” in which Iran could weaponize its nuclear capabilities should the agreement collapse, was not enough to calm Israel.
“If we can convince them [the Western negotiators] to work on these small details, maybe we can get to a point where there will be an expansion of that time period, and perhaps we can get something that is less bad than what we’re seeing here,” Bar-Lev said.
Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said the agreement was “disconnected from the sad reality” of the continued violence in the Middle East. When asked by Israeli Radio if he would support a military strike on Iran, he added, “If we have no choice, we have no choice. I don’t want to talk about a military option, other than to say it exists.”
In 1981, Israel attacked and destroyed an nuclear reactor under construction in Iran.
