09:19 GMT 10.01.2022 (Updated: 09:44 GMT 10.01.2022)

Urgent - Sputnik International, 1920, 10.01.2022

Tehran, other signatories of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Iran nuclear deal, and the United States have been negotiating on bringing the agreement back online. Israel has repeatedly threatened to carry out strikes against the Islamic Republic targeting its nuclear programme, either unilaterally or in coordination with Washington.

Israel is not part of the talks in Vienna on the JCPOA, and will not be bound by their terms, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has said.

“In regard to the nuclear talks in Vienna, we are definitely concerned…Israel is not a side to the agreements. Israel is not bound by what will be written in the agreements, if they are signed, and Israel will continue to maintain full freedom of action anywhere, any time, with no constraints,” Bennett said, speaking at a briefing of the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defence committee on Monday.

Characterizing Iran as “the head of an octopus that constantly threatens via its proxies,” Bennett warned that Israel has “shifted from defence to offence consistently” to deal with threats.

The prime minister also commented on the security situation in Israel, saying it was ‘good’ and ‘getting better.’

Current and former Israeli officials are divided regarding the JCPOA and its implications for Tel Aviv’s national security. While Bennett and his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, have repeatedly condemned the landmark agreement (and in Netanyahu’s case, helped to torpedo it in 2018), others, including Israel Defence Forces Operations Directorate Chief Aharon Haliva and former deputy national security adviser Chuck Freilich, have characterized it as “the best of the bad options” for Tel Aviv. The alternatives, Freilich warned in a recent interview with Haaretz, include massed missile strikes against Tel Aviv by Iran and Hezbollah in retaliation to any Israeli aggression.