Mossad chief Yossi Cohen to visit Washington in the coming weeks to lay out Israel’s demands of the Biden administration for any new version of the Iran nuclear deal, Channel 12 news reported Saturday night.
The network said Cohen, one of Netanyahu’s most trusted colleagues, is to travel to the US within the next month and will be the first senior Israeli official to meet US President Joe Biden. He is also expected to meet with the head of the CIA.
On Saturday evening, the Prime Minister’s Office announced that Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat spoke by phone with his new American counterpart Jake Sullivan, in the first confirmed high-level conservation between Israeli officials and the Biden administration. “The two agreed to soon discuss many topics on the agenda, including the Iranian issue, regional matters and advancing the Abraham Accords,” the PMO said in a statement.
Cohen will set out what Israel believes are core components to which the Iranian regime would have to commit under the terms of any resumed version of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Netanyahu publicly lobbied the Obama administration in vain against the deal, successfully encouraged president Donald Trump to withdraw from it, and has urged Biden to reconsider his declared intention to rejoin it.
Were the US nonetheless move to rejoin the nuclear deal, Cohen will present the following demands that Israel’s government believes must be incorporated: That Iran must halt the enriching of uranium; stop producing advanced centrifuges; cease supporting terror groups, foremost Lebanon’s Hezbollah; end its military presence in Iraq, Syria and Yemen; stop terror activity against Israeli targets overseas; and grant full access to the IAEA on all aspects of its nuclear program.
Israel fears a revived deal under which Iran will be able to both continue enriching uranium and be granted financial relief that will enable the Islamist regime to repair the economy.
Cohen was in the US earlier this month, for a farewell meeting with secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
