The United States and Israel are “committed” to preventing Iran from having an atomic bomb

The United States and Israel are committed to preventing Iran from getting an atomic bomb, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday, at a time when both countries have expressed their differences over negotiating with Tehran over its nuclear program.

“On the most important issue, we agree. We are both committed, we are determined that Iran will never get a nuclear bomb,” Blinken told journalists in Jerusalem, along with his Israeli counterpart, Yair Lapid.

Blinken stated that US President Joe Biden believes that “the return to full implementation” according “is the best way to put the Iranian program back in the box it escaped from when the United States withdrew from the agreement,” during Donald Trump's administration in 2018.

Israel, for its part, views with bad eyes a possible agreement on the Iranian nuclear program, its main enemy.

“We have disagreements about the nuclear program and its consequences, but we are open to open and honest dialogue,” Lapid said.

“Israel and the United States will work together to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But at the same time, Israel will do everything necessary to stop the Iranian nuclear program,” he added.

Israeli head of government Naftali Bennett also met with Blinken and indicated that Israel is very concerned that the United States will give way to one of Iran's demands to seal an agreement and remove the Guardians of the Revolution from the list of “terrorist” organizations.

But at the Doha Forum, the US emissary to Iran, Robert Malley, dismissed this hypothesis, stating that his country has no intention of removing the group from the blacklist.

Historic summit

Comments on the Iranian nuclear program came on the eve of a historic summit between the US Secretary of State, the heads of Israeli diplomacy and four Arab countries to address negotiations on the Iranian nuclear agreement and the global instability caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

This forum will bring together for the first time on Israeli territory the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, who normalized their relations with Israel in 2020, as well as Egypt, which signed peace with the Jewish State in 1979.

On Sunday night, an attack near a kibbutz in the southern Negev Desert cost the lives of two Israeli policemen and left several injured.

The police claimed to have killed two attackers, Israeli Arabs. The attack was claimed by the jihadist organization Islamic State (IS), which does not usually carry out actions in Israel.

On Monday morning, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett confirmed that the chief executive has covid, a day after he held a closed-door meeting with Blinken, followed by a mask-free press conference.

The State Department indicated that Blinken, who was seen training in the Negev on Monday, is the only member of the US delegation considered Bennett's “close contact” and will undergo the health protocol that includes wearing a mask and testing.

The summit comes at a time when the United States and its European allies have quietly expressed their “frustration” at the attitude of Middle Eastern countries towards the war in Ukraine and the fact that they have not distanced themselves from Moscow.

(With information from AFP)