ISRAEL will not be bound by a “first step” deal likely to be signed on Friday with Iran meant to curb Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Friday morning, ahead of a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry.
“Israel utterly rejects it and what I am saying is shared by many in the region, whether or not they express that publicly. Israel is not obliged by this agreement and Israel will do everything it needs to do to defend itself and the security of its people,” he said.
Kerry and Netanyahu met before the secretary of state was due to leave for Geneva at the invitation of EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, to take part in the nuclear negotiations with the Islamic Republic.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle were also asked to arrive at the Swiss city, making the signing of the deal on Friday all the more probable.
Netanyahu told reporters that Iran was getting “the deal of the century” and warned that signing a “first step” deal would bury “the possibility of having a peaceful resolution.”
“I understand that the Iranians are walking around very satisfied in Geneva as well they should be because they got everything and paid nothing,” Netanyahu said.
“Everything they wanted, they wanted relief of sanctions after years of a grueling sanctions regime, they got that. They are paying nothing because they are not reducing in any way their nuclear enrichment capability,” he said.
A senior State Department official said on Friday morning that Kerry was committed to doing “anything he can” to narrow differences with Iran over its nuclear program.
“This is a complex process. As a member of the P5+1, he is committed to doing anything he can [to] help narrow these differences,” the official said.
The Islamic Republic and the Western allies were working on a draft agreement during talks in Geneva that started on Thursday, ahead of a likely announcement, The Wall Street Journal cited Iranian and Western sources as saying.
Negotiators in Geneva cautioned, however, that work remained to be done in the coming hours in very complex negotiations and that a successful outcome was not guaranteed. Iran rejects Western accusations that it is seeking the capability to make nuclear weapons.
According to the proposed short-term deal, Iran would freeze its nuclear activities for the next six months, allowing for more time to reach a permanent agreement.
The Guardian reported that the “first-step agreement” is understood to include four key points:
* Iran would stop weapons-grade 20 percent uranium enrichment and turn its existing stockpile into oxide, a harmless material.
* Iran would be allowed to continue 3.5% enrichment needed for power stations, but limit the number of centrifuges being used. The deal would, however, not include any demand to remove or disable any other centrifuges.
* While still being allowed to work on its plutonium reactor at Arak, Iran would agree not to activate it for the durations of the six months. The plutonium reactor could provide for another route to nuclear weapon capability.
* Iran would not use its IR-2 centrifuges that are more advanced and capable of enriching uranium three-to-five times faster than the older model.
In exchange for these steps, the US would agree to ease some “reversible” economic sanctions, the Guardian reported, possibly by releasing some Iranian funds frozen in overseas accounts. In addition, the US could possibly relax restrictions on Iran’s petrochemical, motor and precious metals industries.
US President Barack Obama told NBC News on Thursday that while the United States was willing to provide Tehran with “very modest [sanctions] relief,” the sanctions architecture would be kept in place.
Sanctions could be tightened if Iran failed to follow through on commitments, he said. Jerusalem Post
