Netanyahu Says All Enriched Uranium ‘Has to Leave Iran’

Jerusalem, Feb 16: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that any deal between the United States and Iran must involve the removal of all enriched uranium from Iran as well as Tehran’s ability to enrich more.

His comments came as Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi headed to Switzerland on Sunday for the second round of renewed nuclear talks with the United States later this week. At a speech in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said any agreement must include several elements.

“The first is that all enriched material has to leave Iran,” he said.

“The second is that there should be no enrichment capability… dismantle the equipment and the infrastructure that allows you to enrich in the first place”. The third, he said, was resolving the issue of ballistic missiles.

Considerable uncertainty surrounds the fate of Iran’s stockpile of more than 400 kilogrammes of 60-percent enriched uranium that was last seen by nuclear watchdog inspectors in June, before Israeli and US strikes against Iranian nuclear sites.

Addressing a conference of presidents of major American Jewish organisations, Netanyahu said he had insisted on these conditions even during his talk with US President Donald Trump earlier this month. On Sunday, he also called for sustained inspections of Tehran’s nuclear programme.

“There has to be real inspection, substantive inspections, no lead-time inspections, but effective inspections for all of the above,” he said. “These are the elements that we believe are important for the achievement of the deal.”

Tehran and Washington restarted nuclear negotiations in Muscat on February 6, months after previous talks collapsed when Israel launched an unprecedented bombing campaign against Iran last June that started a 12-day war. The latest talks came with Washington having threatened Tehran with military action and deployed an aircraft carrier group to the region following Iran’s deadly crackdown on anti-government protests last month.