by Dan Williams
PARIS, July 5 (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Tuesday urged Emmanuel Macron during a visit to Paris to take up a proposal the French president put forward in 2018 on the Iran nuclear deal, saying that the diplomatic standoff with Thran threatened to spark a regional arms race.
As the administration of US President Joe Biden seeks to reinstate the agreement signed by the United States in 2015 then denounced by Donald Trump in 2018, Israeli officials privately suggest that the European powers involved in the pact have adopted a line tougher than Washington on Thran.
Consequently, Israel sees Yair Lapid’s visit to France – his first trip abroad since taking office as head of an interim government last week – as an opportunity to press Europeans on this file.
“At the time in 2018, you were the first world leader to talk about the need for a new agreement with Iran,” said Yair Lapid Emmanuel Macron after a warm hug on the steps of the Elyse Palace.
“You were right then, and you are even more right today,” added the Israeli Prime Minister. “The current situation cannot continue like this. It will lead to an arms race in the Middle East, which would threaten world peace.”
While he praised the Hebrew leader, Emmanuel Macron did not mention his own comments from 2018, made just before the United States’ withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA), when the Europeans tried to convince Donald Trump not to denounce the agreement.
“I would like to remind you once again of our desire to conclude the negotiations on a return to respect for the JCPOA as soon as possible”, declared the French president of the indirect discussions opened last year in the hope of bringing the States United States and Iran under the deal, which Thran began to exit in stages in 2019.
“We agree with Israel that this agreement will not be enough to contain Iran’s destabilizing activities, but I remain more convinced than ever that an Iran on the nuclear threshold could carry out these activities in an even more dangerous way. “, he continued.
If Israel is not a stakeholder in the discussions on Iranian nuclear power, the Western powers are attentive to the concerns of the Jewish State with regard to Iran, worried about a possible military initiative against its great regional rival in the event of diplomatic stalemate his eyes.
“We want an end to endless talks,” said a senior Israeli official ahead of Yair Lapid’s arrival in Paris, calling for “coordinated pressure” on Thran. (Report Dan Williams, with Tassilo Hummel and Michel Rose; French version Jean Terzian, told by Jean-Stphane Brosse)