Israel can accept the emerging agreement between the United States and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday, according to Hebrew media reports.
The premier explained during a closed-door, three-hour meeting with members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Washington and Tehran are nearing a “mini-agreement, and not a nuclear agreement,” Walla and Channel 13 reported, citing unnamed lawmakers who participated in the meeting
Under that agreement, Iran will reportedly not be allowed to enrich uranium above 60%, in return for the U.S. releasing funds and swapping prisoners.
“This is not the agreement we know—this is an agreement which we will know how to deal with,” the prime minister reportedly said, referring to the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers opposed by Israel and abandoned by former U.S. president Donald Trump in 2018.
Netanyahu was making his first appearance at a Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting since the current government took power. At the start of the session, he made public comments regarding an imminent Iran deal.
“Our position is clear: No agreement with Iran will be binding on Israel, which will continue to do everything to defend itself,” he said.
Israel’s stance on the matter was having an impact, he said, but there was still a gap.
“Our opposition to a return to the original agreement, I think it is working, but there are still differences of outlook and we do not hide them, also about smaller agreements. We enunciate our policy clearly both openly and in closed rooms,” Netanyahu continued.
A U.S. official on Monday denied that a new nuclear deal was in the works, saying that messages calling for confidence-building measures had been relayed to the regime.
Also on Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani confirmed that indirect talks between Tehran and Washington took place last month in Oman but dismissed the possibility of reaching an interim nuclear pact.