Jerusalem, July 10: Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said on Sunday he will discuss Iran with US President Joe Biden during the latter’s visit to the region.
‘We’re starting a historic week. President Joe Biden, one of Israel’s closest friends in the US politics, will land on Wednesday, once saying of himself, ‘You don’t have to be Jewish to be Zionist. I’m a Zionist.’ This visit will focus on both challenges and opportunities. Discussion of the challenges will focus primarily on the Iran issue,” Lapid said at a cabinet meeting.
The prime minister added that Israel reserved “complete freedom of action, diplomatic and operational, in the fight against the Iranian nuclear program,” and that he will discuss with Biden and his team the expansion of security cooperation in the face of all threats.
Biden will visit Israel, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia on July 13-16 as part of his presidency’s first Middle East tour.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed in 2015 by the United Kingdom, Russia, China, Germany, the US, France, the European Union, and Iran, imposing restrictions on the advancement of the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of US sanctions. In 2018, then US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from JCPOA and reimposed sanctions on Iran. Tehran responded with a gradual retreat from JCPOA obligations, abandoning restrictions on nuclear research, centrifuges and the level of uranium enrichment.
Negotiations on resuming the JCPOA and lifting Washington’s sanctions against Tehran were held in Vienna. In December 2021, the parties agreed on two draft agreements, in which the European side included Iran’s conditions. According to Iranian representative Bagheri Kyani, the negotiations were successful, but US State Department spokesman Ned Price assessed the progress in Vienna as “modest.” Negotiations were suspended with the return of the parties to their capitals at the end of March. The latest round of JCPOA talks was held in Doha on June 29-30.
