Israel says will not abide by Iran nuclear deal

Israel will not constrain itself with any nuclear agreement between world powers and Iran, Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, said Monday, Anadolu News Agency reports.

“Israel is not part of the agreements and is not obligated by them. Israel will maintain unlimited freedom to act,” Bennett told the Knesset (Israel’s parliament)’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee.

“Iran is the head of an octopus that constantly threatens Israel via its proxies,” he added, in statements cited by the Jerusalem Post newspaper.

On Saturday, Russian and Iranian officials said progress has been made in the Vienna talks to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement.

READ: Return to Iran nuclear deal better than no deal, Israel military official says

The Russian envoy to Iran nuclear talks, Mikhail Ulyanov, said that talks are moving “slowly but steadily”.

The eighth round of marathon talks between Iran and the P4+1 (Russia, China, France, UK and Germany) resumed in the Austrian capital on 27 December.

The talks are centred on Iran’s key demand of lifting the sanctions imposed by the former US administration following its unilateral withdrawal from the landmark 2015 deal in May 2018.