JERUSALEM (JTA) — No agreement with Iran on its nuclear program is preferable to a bad one, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday night briefed Netanyahu on the world powers’ nuclear talks with Iran, Netanyahu told his Cabinet Sunday at its regular weekly meeting.
Netanyahu said that a “bad agreement” could “endanger Israel, the Middle East and all of humanity.”
The Israeli leader said his country was monitoring developments in the talks.
“We are holding discussions with the representatives of other major powers and are presenting them with a vigorous position to the effect that Iran must not be allowed to be determined as a nuclear threshold state,” Netanyahu said. “There is no reason why it should be left with thousands of centrifuges that could enable it to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb in a short time.”
The talks have a Monday deadline for a deal. On Sunday, a trilateral meeting featured Kerry, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and European Union representative Catherine Ashton.
If there is no resolution of the talks by the end of Sunday, Iran and the world powers reportedly will agree to extend the deadline for the talks by several months.
