Netanyahu to discuss ‘bad’ Tehran accord with Trump

‘Right’ accused of sabotage

JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON, Dec 5, (Agencies): Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he would discuss with Donald Trump the West’s “bad” nuclear deal with Iran after the US president-elect enters the White House.

Speaking separately to a conference in Washington, Netanyahu and US Secretary of State John Kerry clashed over the Iran deal and Israel’s settlement construction on the occupied West Bank, which Kerry depicted as an obstacle to peace.

During the US election campaign, Trump, a Republican, called last year’s nuclear pact a “disaster” and “the worst deal ever negotiated”. He has also said it would be hard to overturn an agreement enshrined in a UN resolution.

“Israel is committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. That has not changed and will not change. As far as President-elect Trump, I look forward to speaking to him about what to do about this bad deal,” Netanyahu told the Saban Forum, a conference on the Middle East, in Washington, via satellite from Jerusalem. Trump takes office on Jan 20.

Netanyahu has been a harsh critic of the nuclear deal, a legacy foreign policy achievement for Democratic President Barack Obama. But he had largely refrained from attacking the pact in recent months as Israeli and US negotiators finalised a 10-year, $38 billion military aid package for Israel. Before the nuclear agreement, Netanyahu, a conservative, strained relations with the White House by addressing the US Congress in 2015 and cautioning against agreeing to the pact.

The Obama administration promoted the deal as a way to suspend Tehran’s suspected drive to develop atomic weapons. In return, Obama agreed to lift most sanctions against Iran. Tehran denies ever having considered developing nuclear arms.

Meanwhile, Kerry on Sunday accused right-wing Israelis of deliberately thwarting efforts to broker a peace deal with the Palestinians.

In unusually stark terms, Washington’s top diplomat warned that Israeli settlement building was undermining any hope of an agreement to allow two states to live side-by-side.

At the Saban Forum, an annual gathering of senior Israeli and US policymakers, Kerry said some members of Netanyahu’s government had made “profoundly disturbing” statements.

“And more than 50 percent of the ministers in the current government have publicly stated they are opposed to a Palestinian state and that there will be no Palestinian state,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Netanyahu had addressed the forum via video link, arguing that Israeli settlement building was not an obstacle to peace.