Israel continues attempts to prevent Western agreement on Iranian nuclear weapons

Israel is continuing its attempt to influence the final stages of the agreement between Iran and the West after it failed in November.

Tel Aviv hopes to influence the terms of the agreement before it is signed. “It’s a bad agreement, and it’s better not to reach an agreement than have a bad agreement,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Fresh negotiations between Iran and the six world powers will open in the Austrian capital Vienna today. Speaking about the negotiations, Netanyahu, in a joint conference with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe yesterday, said: “We cannot let the ayatollahs win; we cannot enable the world’s foremost terror states to get the capability to make nuclear weapons. That would be a grave danger to the peace of the world and we must not allow it to happen.”

He continued: “Iran is fooling the West and withholding information. There are fears that Iran will, after the negotiations, hold a large number of reactors keeping us a single step away from a nuclear bomb.”

The Minister of Strategic Affairs Yuval Steinitz, currently in Washington, announced the continuation of Israeli-American cooperation in the Iranian file. “Iran is trying to save its nuclear programme as well as its economic affairs and we must refuse to leave the remaining thousand bioreactors in Iran because they will allow Iran to reach a nuclear bomb in less than a year. We are working from now for that eventuality so the world does not fall victim to Iranian games.”

Susan Rice, the US national security advisor, visited Israel last week and announced after her meeting with Netanyahu that the “US is committed to preventing Iran from owning nuclear weapons” and affirmed the US’ use of the diplomatic route.