US President Joe Biden (left) and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid
Senior Israeli officials have called on US and European leaders to leave talks with Iran on returning to the 2015 nuclear deal.
While Jerusalem believes Iran is close to inking an agreement with world powers, and has started preparing for the announcement of the deal, top Israeli officials said on Thursday that the time has come for Western powers to walk away from talks.
“The Europeans sent Iran a final offer, which doesn’t even meet the demands that the Americans committed to, and established that this offer was ‘take it or leave it,'” said a senior Israeli official at the highest level of decision-making on Thursday, adding that “Iran turned down the offer, and the time has come to get up and walk away.”
“Anything else sends a strong message of weakness,” the official added.
The unnamed senior official, in a briefing to Israeli journalists, also said that the world must now discuss what must be done in order to prevent Iran from abtaining a nuclear weapon.
Earlier on Thursday, Prime Minister Yair Lapid expressed this message in his phone call with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He also made the case to US Ambassador Tom Nides, and Florida congressman Ted Deutch, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa and Global Counterterrorism.
Israel’s National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata will head to Washington, DC, next week to conduct a series of meetings with US officials on the Iran nuclear program.