Lapid Presses Macron to Take Tougher Line in Faltering Iran Nuclear Talks

Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Tuesday spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron about the latest efforts to strike a new Iran nuclear deal amid the current diplomatic deadlock, arguing that failing to restrain Tehran’s nuclear program would provoke a regional arms race.

“The current situation cannot continue as it is,” Lapid said during his visit at the Elysée Palace in Paris. “It will lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, which would threaten world peace.”

Chances to revive the 2015 nuclear accord, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), appeared slim after indirect US-Iranian talks in Doha, Qatar, ended without progress last week. With France a member of the E3 group of European countries party to the negotiations with Iran, Lapid called on Macron to revisit his proposal for a new deal in 2018, when he urged then US President Donald Trump not to withdraw from the original JCPOA, under which Iran limited its nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.

“Back in 2018, you were the first world leader to talk about the need for a new deal with Iran,” Lapid stated. “A deal that is more efficient and better defined, a deal with no expiration date, a deal with coordinated international pressure that would prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear threshold state.”

“You were right then, and you are even more right today,” he said.

During his first diplomatic visit since assuming the role of caretaker prime minister last week, Lapid claimed that despite the two countries’ disagreement on the substance of the 2015 nuclear deal, “we do not disagree on the facts.”

“The facts are that Iran is violating the agreement and continues to develop its nuclear program,” he asserted. “Iran is hiding information from the world, it is enriching uranium beyond the level it is allowed to, and it has removed cameras from its nuclear sites.”

Macron, meanwhile, reiterated his desire to return to the JCPOA as soon as possible.

“We agree with Israel that this agreement will not be enough to contain Iran’s destabilizing activities, but I remain, more than ever, convinced that an Iran that would be on the threshold of nuclear (power) could carry out its activities in an even more dangerous way,” Macron said. “We must therefore defend this agreement, take into account the security interests of our friends in the region, Israel first and foremost, and supplement it with even stronger negotiations on ballistic and regional activities.”

The US special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, said in a Tuesday interview with NPR that Tehran has continued to make “alarming” developments in its uranium enrichment program, and that Iranian representatives at the Doha talks had issued new demands, unrelated to the nuclear deal.

Echoing a separate warning by Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz made earlier Tuesday, Lapid also raised with Macron Tehran’s sponsorship of terrorism throughout the region.

The Israeli premier cited the Turkish government’s exposure last month of Iranian cells planning to target Israeli tourists in Istanbul, and Hezbollah’s recent launch of Iranian-made drones on an Israeli gas rig in the disputed maritime area near the Lebanese coast.

“Israel will not sit back and do nothing, given these repeated attacks,” he insisted.