The war in Ukraine and the nuclear talks in Vienna: Ehud Yaari, News 12’s commentator on Arab affairs, spoke today (Thursday) with Ben Caspit and Winon Magal, on their program on 103FM, and revealed details about the progress in the nuclear agreement.
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“We are in the eighth round, which is supposed to be a final round, it is not certain that this will be the case. “There are three issues that have not yet been closed as of last night – the scope of the lifting of sanctions, the guarantee that Iran wants the United States not to withdraw from the agreement, and the question of the military aspects of the Iranian plan, which they refuse to give inspectors answers or access to,” Yaari explained.
“In addition, yesterday there was a leak of participants in some of the delegations. I think it came mainly from the French side, because their position is the most aggressive and rigid towards the Iranians.”
Yaari also spoke about the remarks of Gabriel Noronia, who was previously in charge of the Iranian issue at the State Secretariat during the Trump era, and came out strongly against current American policy towards Iran. “He talks about the removal of sanctions going far beyond those sanctions related to the nuclear issue. Noronia’s claim that the participants in the talks are so upset about the extent of the concessions made by the head of the American delegation Rob Mali, that they are leaking out in an attempt to stop it.
“I think we have been seeing for some time that the Americans are ready at almost any cost to pretend to return to the 2015 agreement, and it is impossible to go back because the situation on the ground has completely changed.”
He said that the removal of sanctions this time would be several times more extensive than in 2015: From Yemen to Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Syria and Lebanon, wherever you want.
“There is no other way to explain this, because these sanctions do not concern the nuclear issue at all and they were not part of the removal of the sanctions at the time in 2015. “In the operational sense, the time Iran needs to reach enough enriched material for a first bomb is shortening, as Obama has argued, to four months or less, and it will be even shorter in the next two or three years.”
On the United States’ exit from the agreement, during Donald Trump’s tenure, Yaari said that if the former president had continued for another term, it would have become effective. “To say today in retrospect that it was wrong in the first place, I’m not sure,” he stated.
Yaari added: “I do not look at anything through the prism of Bibi-not Bibi. What changes the spirit of the talks is what the Mossad did when it segmented the Iranian nuclear archive from Tehran. why? Because Israel presented to everyone, there is no denying it, the evidence of Iranian military activity, even after they claimed to have stopped. And today, when the French stand on their hind legs in Vienna in front of the Americans, and say, “We need to demand clarification on these issues that have arisen from the nuclear archive to the end, this is for me Israel on the field.”
In Yaari’s opinion, if it is indeed signed in the end, it will be “an agreement several times worse than the agreement that was, the removal of the sanctions is wholesale and even in that I did not see Israel playing properly. “There are important forces in America that oppose the wholesale removal of sanctions.”
And what is Israel’s status in negotiations?
“Israel is not in the game,” he clarified. “She sends middle-ranking officials to Vienna to hear what they agree to say to them. It’s not too much. “
On the Israeli government’s ‘mediation efforts’ between Russia and Ukraine, he said: “The prime minister pretends to be immersed in the mediation between Ukraine and Russia, and for that I say ‘come on.’ We are not players on this pitch. “
He said, “In order to mediate between Ukraine and Russia, Angela Merkel must be returned from her vacation or the president of Finland, Ninista, who is a good friend of both Putin and Zanelsky, must be recruited. At another level it will not go.
“We need to look at what Israel is doing in front of the Russian oligarchs, Putin’s favorites, some of whom have Israeli passports who want to arrive now.”