Bennett: Mossad Will Be Tasked with Preventing Iran from Going Nuclear

By: Baruch Yedid

“The big, monumental, task that lies on your shoulders is to prevent Iran from going nuclear,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stated during an event at the Mossad headquarters, as Iran is reportedly on the verge of resigning a nuclear deal with the West.

Bennett attended on Tuesday a ceremony held at the Mossad, with the participation of Mossad Director David Barnea, the Forum of the Heads of Departments and agency employees, and reiterated Israel’s stance that any new agreement does not bind it.

“The agreement does not bind us, and the date — two and a half years from now — which allows Iran to assemble countless centrifuges, certainly does not bind us,” he declared.

“For us – there is no such thing as ‘sunset’ [clause]. The sun will not set on Israel’s security and the well-being of its citizens,” he stated.

Touching on the Mossad’s upcoming missions, he stated that their abilities “will stand many tests in the coming years and in the near future. I wish we could leave them in the theoretical or experimental dimension only. But as it looks right now, your hands will be full. The big, monumental, task that lies on your shoulders is to prevent Iran from going nuclear.”

“This is a task you have been dealing with for many years, but we seem to be approaching the moment of truth, we have reached money time,” he said.

An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday in this regard that 97-98% of the draft clauses were co-written by the parties.

State Department Spokesperson Ned Price told reporters on Monday that “there has been significant progress in recent days” in the talks in Vienna and that they “are at a decisive moment.” However, he warned that time is of the essence as “Tehran’s nuclear advancements will soon render the nonproliferation benefits that the JCPOA conveyed essentially meaningless before too long.”

The US is “prepared to walk away if Iran displays an intransigence to making progress,” he underscored.

“Iran is taking advantage of the war in Ukraine to extract concessions in Vienna over the nuclear deal,” the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported Tuesday.

The newspaper reported that talks in Vienna are at a critical stage and that the parties, Iran and the European powers, are at the closest point ever to a new agreement. An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said in this regard that 97-98% of the draft clauses were co-written by the parties.

The Nur News website, which is close to the Iranian government, stated that the parties are very close to the agreement, just as they are also, on the other hand, at a dead end.

Al-Akhbar reported that Iran is demanding concessions on the extent of the sanctions to be lifted on the country and is also demanding that they be lifted from the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), which has been listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Tehran is also demanding guarantees that the US will not withdraw from the agreement in the future.

(TPS)