Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid signed a joint statement affirming their determination to prevent Iran from accessing nuclear weapons.
The United States is ready to use “all elements of its national power” to prevent Iran from acquiring atomic weapons, underlines a declaration signed Thursday in Jerusalem by President Joe Biden and the Prime Minister Israeli Yair Lapid.
The two leaders signed this “Jerusalem Declaration on the Strategic Partnership between the United States and Israel” on the occasion of President Biden’s first visit to the Middle East devoted in part to the Iranian nuclear program.
Iran categorically denies seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.
The attitude to adopt vis-à-vis Tehran is a source of hesitation between the United States, which would like to try the diplomatic route by resuscitating a 2015 agreement aimed at guaranteeing the civilian nature of the Iranian nuclear program, and Israel, a follower hard line.
Considered by experts as the only nuclear power in the Middle East, Israel accuses Iran, its sworn enemy, of seeking to acquire the atomic bomb.
If the Biden administration says it wants to pursue the diplomatic path in the hope of reviving the 2015 agreement, abandoned in 2018 by Donald Trump, it maintains that the United States “commits never to allow Iran to ‘acquire nuclear weapons and use all elements of their national power to ensure it’.
The US and Israel will cooperate to develop laser defense systems to “defend Israel’s airspace”.
Israeli leaders have repeated in recent months that their country intends to retain its “freedom of action” against Iran even if the agreement on the Iranian nuclear program is put back on track.
However, the “Jerusalem Declaration” emphasizes that the United States undertakes “to preserve and strengthen Israel’s capacity to deter its enemies and to defend itself against any threat or combination of threats”.
The text also stresses that the United States and Israel will cooperate to develop laser defense systems to “defend Israel’s airspace”.
The Israeli army had presented President Biden on Wednesday upon his arrival at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv with videos showing interceptions of drones by the “Iron Beam”, a new laser anti-aircraft defense device.