Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Citing leaks, U.S. shuts Israelis out of Iran talks
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s administration said Wednesday that it is withholding from Israel some sensitive details of its nuclear negotiations with Iran because it is worried Israeli government officials have leaked information to try to scuttle the talks — and will continue to do so.
Reflecting the increasingly strained ties between the U. S. and Israel, the White House and State Department said they were not sharing everything from the negotiations and complained that Israeli officials had misrepresented what they had been told in the past.
Senior U.S. officials privately blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “changing the dynamic” of previously robust information-sharing by politicizing it.
The comments came as a late March deadline looms to forge the outline of an Iran nuclear deal and as U. S. and Iranian negotiators prepare for a new round of talks this week in Geneva.
Netanyahu has angered the White House with his open opposition to a deal he believes threatens Israel’s existence, and by accepting a Republican invitation to address Congress about Iran in early March without consulting the White House, a breach of diplomatic protocol.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that sharing all details of the negotiations with governments that are not at the table would complicate efforts to get a deal that would prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon in exchange for sanctions relief. Iran insists its nuclear production is strictly for peaceful, civilian purposes.
The talks are being held among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — along with Germany and Iran.
“The United States is not going to be in a position of negotiating this agreement in public, particularly when we see that there is a continued practice of cherry- picking specific pieces of information and using them out of context to distort the negotiating position of the United States,” Earnest said when asked whether the U.S. was limiting the information it shared with Israel about the talks.
“So, there is an obligation when you’re participating in these kinds of negotiations to ensure that those consultations and that those negotiations are carried out in good faith. And that means giving negotiators the room and the space to negotiate,” he said.
State Department spokesman Jen Psaki went further, confirming that one of the steps the administration takes to ensure that “classified negotiating details stay behind closed doors” is to withhold them from Israel. She also directly blamed Israel for mischaracterizing the talks.
“I think it’s safe to say that not everything you’re hearing from the Israeli government is an accurate reflection of the details of the talks,” she said. “There’s a selective sharing of information.”
But while Earnest and Psaki said the limitations on information sharing were long-standing, U.S. officials more directly involved in the talks said the decision to withhold the most sensitive details of the negotiations dated back only several weeks.
Those officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said the administration believes Netanyahu, who is facing a March 17 election at home, has made a political decision to try to destroy the negotiations rather than merely insist on a good deal.
This, the officials said, had led to politically motivated leaks from Israeli officials and made it impossible to continue to share all details of the talks, particularly as Netanyahu has not backed down on his vow to argue against a nuclear deal when he speaks to Congress.
Neither Earnest nor Psaki would discuss the details of
the leaks, but senior U.S. officials have expressed consternation with reports in the Israeli media as well as by The Associated Press about the number of centrifuges Iran might be able to keep under a potential agreement.
Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium, and diplomats familiar with the talks have said Iran may be allowed to keep more of them in exchange for other concessions under current proposals that are on the table.
Netanyahu has insisted that Iran, a longtime foe of Israel, should not be allowed to enrich any uranium. The U.S. and its partners have said that stance is untenable because Iran would never accept it.
As the talks have progressed, Netanyahu’s opposition to an agreement has increased over what he believes to be extreme concessions made to Iran that would leave it as a threshold nuclear weapons power and a direct threat to Israel’s existence.
The White House and State Department maintained that the U.S. will not leave Israel threatened. They also insisted that Israel has not been completely cut out of the loop and that overall security cooperation with the Jewish state remains strong.
DOUBTS FROM AYATOLLAH
As the tensions between the U.S. and Israel became clearer Wednesday, Iran’s supreme leader cast his own doubt on the likelihood of
success in the decade-long negotiation over the country’s nuclear capabilities.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Wednesday that Western sanctions against his country are unlikely to be lifted even in the event of a nuclear deal, because the West opposes the fundamental principles of Iran’s Islamic revolution.
“The enemy is going to use the weapon of sanctions to the hilt because their goal is to stop the progress of our people,” Khamenei was quoted as saying by the official Islamic Republic News Agency. “Even if we were to allow them to dictate to us on the nuclear issue, the sanctions will not be lifted because they are against the foundational principles of the revolution.”
The negotiations have been extended repeatedly over the past year as both sides have at times said an agreement was within reach. They now face a June 30 deadline for an accord, which Khamenei appeared to suggest wouldn’t be met.
“If their intent is to retain sanctions, the Iranian nation can go that route as well,” the supreme religious leader said in his address in Tehran. “Iran has the world’s most gas and oil, and if need be Iran can hold back gas that Europe and the world is so dependent on.”
Khamenei earlier this month suggested he could “go along with the agreement in the making” at the negotiating forum. But in that Feb. 8
address to a military gathering he also hinted at Tehran’s ability to retaliate if an agreement failed to bring an end to the sanctions crippling Iran’s economy.
Iranian conservatives said Khamenei is correct in seeing the negotiations as a forum in which the West, and the United States in particular, is attempting to subjugate Iran.
“I see no point in continuing to negotiate. What the supreme leader is saying is not being heeded by the negotiation team,” said former regime lawmaker Hoshang Tale. “If there is no promise to lift all sanctions in the event of a nuclear deal, why should Iran be negotiating? Even if there is a deal reached, there will be a big rift between the supreme leader and President [Hassan] Rouhani’s negotiators, so the talks are a loss for Iran.”
Others said Khamenei’s comments were intended for his conservative audience.
“What he said today is for domestic consumption,” and for the benefit of the regime officials and economists gathered in Tehran for a seminar on countering sanctions, said independent political analyst Nader Karimi Juni. “His speech cannot change the course of the ongoing nuclear talks, and a deal will be reached ultimately.”