Ashkenazi: World must act to stop Iran from getting future bomb
The negotiations in Vienna are for the Iran to scale back its enrichment from 60%
By LAHAV HARKOVUpdated: APRIL 20, 2021 12:22Israel's new Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi(photo credit: MIRIAM ALSTER/FLASH90)
Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi called on world powers to ensure Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon in the future, as indirect negotiations between Iran and the US were set to continue in Vienna on Tuesday.“Iran is undermining the stability of the entire Middle East and the international community must act to not allow Iran to reach nuclear capabilities – not today and not in the future,” Ashkenazi said in a meeting with UK Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove, who was visiting Israel to learn about post-COVID-19 policies.The talks between the US and Iran, facilitated by the European parties to the deal – the UK, France and Germany – are meant to bring both countries back to compliance with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which limits Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, while gradually lifting sanctions.However, all of the JCPOA’s restrictions on uranium enrichment expire in 2030, which critics in Israel and beyond say means the agreement provides Iran a path to a nuclear weapon with an international imprimatur.The negotiations in Vienna are for the Iran to scale back its enrichment from 60% - an unprecedented level that it reached in the last week – to the permissible 5%, as well as its other violations of the JCPOA, and for the US to lift sanctions it placed on Iran after leaving the deal in 2018.Iran has said it will not make any concessions until all post-JCPOA sanctions are removed, while the US has said it will not lift sanctions without Iran taking serious steps towards compliance.On Monday, Russia's Ambassador to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov tweeted that the negotiators are close to drafting an agreement."Summing up the results of 2 weeks of deliberations on JCPOA restoration we can note with satisfaction that the negotiations entered the drafting stage," Ulyanov wrote. "Practical solutions are still far away, but we have moved from general words to agreeing on specific steps towards the goal."Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told a weekly news conference in Tehran: “We are on the right track and some progress has been made, but this does not mean that the talks in Vienna have reached the final stage.”The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said he saw a willingness to save the 2015 deal, citing progress at the Vienna talks.“I think that both parties are really interested in reaching an agreement and they have been moving from general to more focused issues, which are clearly, on one side sanction-lifting, and on the other side, nuclear implementation issues,” he said.On Sunday, Israel’s Diplomatic-Security Cabinet held a meeting on the Iranian threat. Sources in the meeting expressed concern that the US is charging into a deal “at all costs” without addressing security concerns.US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that the US would seek a “longer and stronger” Iran deal, with administration officials and US President Joe Biden himself mentioning possible additional elements such as limiting Iran’s ballistic missile program and its aggression across the Middle East.Reuters contributed to this report.
