The time has come for Western powers to walk away from talks with Iran on returning to the nuclear deal, top Israeli officials are telling their counterparts in Washington and in European capitals.
“The Europeans sent Iran a final offer, which doesn’t even meet the demands that the Americans committed to and established that this offer was ‘take it or leave it,'” said a senior Israeli official at the highest level of decision-making on Thursday.
“Iran turned down the offer, and the time has come to get up and walk away,” the official continued. “Anything else sends a strong message of weakness.”
The senior official, in a briefing to Israeli journalists, said that the world must now discuss what must be done in order to prevent Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid expressed this message in his phone call with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz earlier on Thursday. He also made the case on Thursday to US Ambassador Tom Nides, and Florida congressman Ted Deutch, chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa and Global Counterterrorism.
