JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel is not about to attack Iran’s nuclear sites, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser said on Friday, as talks between Tehran and Washington aimed to ease tensions.
Tzachi Hanegbi said it was still unclear what would happen to the talks that Israel’s main ally, the United States, had with Iran in recent weeks aimed at defining measures that could limit Tehran’s nuclear program and defuse tensions.
Still, no deal would bind Israel, which views a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat, Hanegbi told Channel 13 television. When asked if an Israeli decision on a preemptive strike against the Iran was closer, Hanegbi replied:
“We are not getting closer because the Iranians have stopped, for a while now they are not enriching uranium to the level which we believe is the red line.”
Hanegbi added: “But it can happen. So we are preparing for the moment, if it comes, in which we will have to defend the people of Israel against a fanatical regime that is determined to destroy us and is armed with weapons of mass destruction. .”
Netanyahu has set a “red line” on enriching Iran’s uranium to 90% bomb-grade fissile purity. Iran has accelerated enrichment to 60% purity in recent years.
Having failed to revive a 2015 nuclear deal that capped Tehran’s enrichment at 3.67%, Iranian and Western officials met to outline measures that could curb its rapidly advancing nuclear work.
The 2015 deal limited Iran’s uranium enrichment to make it harder for Tehran to develop the means to produce nuclear weapons. Iran denies having such ambitions.
Then-US President Donald Trump abandoned the pact in 2018 and reimposed sanctions that crippled Iran’s economy. Tehran responded by gradually going well beyond the enrichment restrictions of the deal.
(Reporting by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Daniel Wallis)