Israel: Mossad chief goes to US for talks
Following the defense minister and the prime minister’s national security adviser, the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency traveled to Washington within days for talks on Iran’s nuclear energy program, a senior Israeli official told AFP yesterday.
David Barnea “will go to Washington (…) for closed-door meetings in Congress regarding the Iran deal,” said the source, who asked not to be named.
Israel is currently waging a “last-minute” diplomatic offensive to try to persuade the West not to renew the international agreement on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy program — officially the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — signed in 2015. Then-US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew his country from the agreement three years later.
Western powers should “stop” negotiating with Tehran, as if there is an agreement on Iran it will gain “billions” of dollars and “destabilize” the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid argued last Wednesday while speaking to the foreign press in Jerusalem. .
The head of the Israeli government, who is campaigning ahead of new early parliamentary elections in Israel on November 1, made it clear that he is not opposed to any possible deal, but is not in favor of the one currently being negotiated by Iran and the others, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.
“The State of Israel is not opposed to an agreement. It is both possible and necessary to push Iran to sign the best deal, an agreement that the US has already called longer and more strengthened,” Mr. Lapid told the Israeli press yesterday Sunday.
“Longer means an agreement without an expiration date, as French President Emmanuel Macron has suggested. “More strengthened means that the agreement will also touch on Iran’s ballistic missile development program and that country’s involvement in terrorism in the Middle East,” the Israeli prime minister added.
To reach such a deal Iran must be put under the pressure of a “credible military threat”, Mr Lapid added, declaring that the Israeli army and Mossad had been “instructed to prepare for all scenarios”.
The national security adviser to the Israeli prime minister, Ayal Hulata, and the Israeli defense minister, Benny Gantz, visited Washington in recent days for talks on the file of this critical importance.
Source: RES-MPE