Tel Aviv opposes any return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, contrary to the impression recent statements may have made, a senior official at the office of the regime’s Prime Minister told the English-language daily newspaper the Jerusalem Post.
“Israel is unequivocal that under no circumstances should there be a return to that bad deal,” the official said.
The meddlesome comments came less than a week after AFP published an interview with Israeli Ambassador to Germany Jeremy Issacharoff with the headline: “Israel open to German efforts to expand Iran nuclear deal with more restrictions.”
In what appears a clear change of stance, the senior Prime Minister’s Office official said Issacharoff’s remarks were misinterpreted and sought to make amply clear that Tel Aviv’s position is that the JCPOA is unacceptable, even with changes.
Repeating the threadbare claims, he said “Israel firmly believes that there should be no return to the Iran nuclear agreement of 2015 - a deal which is flawed to its foundations.”
In July 2015, Iran and six world powers – the US, the UK, France, Russia and China plus Germany – inked an agreement officially named the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Tehran’s nuclear program.
The JCPOA, which was the outcome of numerous rounds of negotiations, was ditched by Trump in May 2018, in pursuit of what he called the maximum pressure policy against the Islamic Republic. The US also reinstated the sanctions that had been lifted against Iran.
Earlier in December, as many as 150 US House Democrats called on Democratic president-elect, Joe Biden, to rejoin the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, in a move completely antithetical to outgoing President Donald Trump’s unilateral exit from the multilateral agreement.
MNA/PR