Israel Prepares for Impact of US’s Likely Return to Iran Nuclear Deal

Top Israeli and U.S. officials dealing with the Iran file met in a signal of the Biden administration’s efforts to keep Israel in the loop as it moves forward in reentering a nuclear deal that Israel rejects. https://t.co/iGPnH06PMQ

— JTA | Jewish news (@JTAnews) April 28, 2021

• Israel Prepares for Impact of US’s Likely Return to Iran Nuclear Deal
  by Tamar SHILOH VIDON, https://www.france24.com/en/
  As efforts continue in Vienna to bring the United States back into the nuclear deal with Iran, Israel sent a high-level delegation of intelligence and defence officials to Washington last week to try to dissuade the US from returning to the accord, while at the same time, it prepares for after it does.
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  The Israeli delegation, which included Mossad Director Yossi Cohen, Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat and the heads of the military intelligence and strategic branches, held several meetings with top American officials to discuss the repercussions of US reentry into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal.
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  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu briefed the delegation before it left for Washington, instructing it to “to express opposition to the agreement with Iran and not to discuss it, because it constitutes a return to the previous deal, which was dangerous to Israel and the region”, according to a news briefing by Netanyahu’s office, quoted in the daily Haaretz. “If serious talks are held in the future on an improved agreement, Israel will express its opinion.”
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  Netanyahu has repeatedly said, since the deal was signed in 2015, that Israel was not bound by it. But the fact that he sent a high-level security delegation to Washington indicates that there are still issues to be discussed.
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  “Although Netanyahu said that Israel isn’t bound by the agreement, I assume that the meetings in Washington are taking place under the working premise that Israel understands that the United States is returning to it. Otherwise it wouldn’t have made sense to hold these talks while indirect negotiations are being held with Iran in Vienna”, Eldad Shavit, a senior research fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) specialising in relations with the United States, told FRANCE 24 on Sunday.
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