Effort to sink deal seen as coordinated

JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON: Israel yesterday said it did not seek war with Iran and suggested United States President Donald Trump backed Israel’s latest attempt to kill the 2015 Iran nuclear deal by disclosing purported evidence of past Iranian nuclear arms work.

A senior Israeli official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had informed Trump at a March 5 meeting about alleged evidence seized by Israel in what Netanyahu presented earlier this week as a ‘‘great intelligence achievement’’.

US and Israeli officials said the information showed Iran had lied about its past work to develop nuclear arms but intelligence

experts said there was no smoking gun showing Teheran had violated the nuclear deal under which it curbed its atomic programme in return for relief from economic sanctions.

Teheran, which denies ever pursuing nuclear weapons, dismissed Netanyahu as ‘‘the boy who cried wolf’’ and called his presentation propaganda.

Trump agreed at the March meeting Israel would publish the information before May 12, the day he is to decide whether the US should quit the nuclear deal with Iran, an Israeli official said.

Word of the consultations between Trump and Netanyahu serves to underscore perceptions of a coordinated bid by both leaders to bury the international agreement, which Trump has called ‘‘horrible’’ and Netanyahu has termed ‘‘terrible’’.

Trump gave Britain, France and Germany a May 12 deadline to fix what he views as the deal’s flaws — its failure to address Iran’s ballistic missile programme, the terms by which inspectors visit suspect Iranian sites, and ‘‘sunset’’ clauses under which some of its terms expire — or he will reimpose US sanctions.

Trump has yet to say whether he will withdraw from it.

While nonproliferation experts and a US official said it was clear Netanyahu wanted to undermine the deal, they said Trump could also choose to use the Israeli information to demand deeper inspections of Iran’s nuclear programme.

In his televised presentation, Netanyahu said Israel had obtained tens of thousands of pages of what he described as Iran’s ‘‘secret atomic archives’’.

A senior Israeli official said Israel knew about the Iranian archive for a year, got hold of it in February and informed Trump about it at a meeting in Washington on March 5.

Netanyahu told CNN yesterday that ‘‘nobody’’ sought a conflict with Iran, a prospect seen by some as a possible result of the deal’s collapse.

But his presentation said the evidence showed Iran lied going into the deal, an agreement seen by Trump as flawed but by European powers as vital to allaying concerns Iran could one day develop nuclear bombs.

Iranian officials rejected the Israeli claims.

‘‘We warn the Zionist regime and its allies to stop their plots and dangerous behaviours or they will face Iran’s surprising and firm response,’’ Iranian Defence Minister Amir Hatami was quoted as saying by Iranian news agency Tasnim yesterday.

He called Netanyahu’s accusations ‘‘baseless’’.

Trump yesterday said he might go to Jerusalem, where the US is moving its embassy from Tel Aviv later this month after Trump broke with other world powers last year to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The embassy is expected to open on May 14 at a provisional site while a more permanent location is built. — Reuters