Foreign Minister Yair Lapid strongly criticized the EU’s top diplomat on Sunday for his decision to travel to Iran to advance talks aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal with the Islamic republic.
According to the Politico news site, in a letter addressed to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, Lapid wrote on Sunday that “this is a strategic mistake that sends the wrong message to Iran.”
Borrell said on Saturday that talks on Iran’s nuclear program would resume in a few days, after a surprise visit to Tehran.
Borrell messaged Lapid before his trip to Iran later this week to give him a heads-up on “his effort to get Iran back into the nuclear deal talks and remove the final hurdles”, on the exchange. The information was given to a diplomat who was quoted by Politico. as saying.
Lapid also slammed the EU official for “lack of care for the lives of Israeli citizens”, considering recent reports of Iranian operatives targeting Israelis in Turkey.
Jerusalem has said Iranian agents were sent to Turkey in recent weeks to target Israeli tourists in an effort to avenge recent attacks on Iranian nuclear and military targets attributed to the Jewish state.
According to reports in Turkish and Israeli media, several raids have been conducted to capture the cell directed by Iran.
Lapid’s harshly voiced letter would mark a significant break from his efforts to bring Israel closer to Brussels, following the breakdown of relations under former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
This comes at the same time that he is set to take over as prime minister soon, ahead of the expected new elections. The government said last week that Lapid would continue to handle the foreign affairs department, although Iran-related issues would continue under the auspices of outgoing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy High Representative Josep Borrell speaks during a meeting with the Iranian Foreign Minister at the Foreign Ministry’s headquarters in Tehran, Iran’s capital, on June 25, 2022. (Atta Canare/AFP)
Earlier Sunday, Iran Tested your Juljana satellite launcherThe second of three tests scheduled for a long-range ballistic launcher, which the US has warned could be used to launch nuclear weapons.
As Politico reports, Lapid’s criticism was generally seen by Borrell’s office as part of an ongoing Israeli effort to sabotage talks with Tehran over the nuclear program.
Two Turkish riot police officers walk in front of the Blue Mosque on June 14, 2022 in Istanbul. (YASIN AQGUL/AFP)
Israel is strongly opposed to a return to the 2015 accord, against which it campaigned at the time of its signing, seeing Iran as unreliable and unable to fulfill its commitments.
Successive Israeli governments have warned for two decades that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon.
The US pulled out of the deal in 2018.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has called for a return to the agreement, saying it would be the best way to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Talks began in April last year but stalled in March, amid differences between Tehran and Washington, particularly over Iran’s demand to remove its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from the US terrorist list.
Robert Malle, the Biden administration’s special envoy for Iran, testifies about the JCPOA during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on May 25, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Brendan Smailowski/AFP)
The deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), gives Iran sanctions relief in exchange for a guarantee that it could not develop a nuclear weapon – something Tehran has always denied.
The United States unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump, before implementing waves of sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
AFP contributed to this report.
