This was the first face-to-face meeting between the two top diplomats since Israel’s new government was sworn in two weeks ago….reports Asian Lite News
Israel Foreign Minister Yair Lapid told his US counterpart Antony Blinken that the country has serious reservations about the Iran nuclear deal being put together in Vienna, according to media reports.
This was the first face-to-face meeting between the two top diplomats since Israel’s new government was sworn in two weeks ago.
During the meeting, Secretary Blinken and Foreign Minister Lapid said they would also discuss Israel’s normalisation accords with Gulf Arab states, according to reports.
Blinken said the US supports Israel’s normalisation accords, but they cannot be a substitute for engaging in issues between Israelis and Palestinians.
Blinken also said he would also be raising the issue of humanitarian assistance into Gaza.
Meawhile, Lapid said the way to disagreement regarding Iran nuclear deal is through direct conversations, not in press conferences, it was reported.
“In the past few years, mistakes were made. Israel’s bipartisan standing was hurt and we will fix those mistakes together,” reports quoted Lapid as saying.
Meanwhile, Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, has said that it is time for the parties involved in the negotiations aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal to take “tough” decisions after “enough” discussions.
“There are a number of pending issues that have been sufficiently negotiated, and it is time for countries to decide,” the senior diplomat told the official Islamic Consultative Assembly News Agency on Sunday, after a meeting with MPs earlier in the day.
Tehran, he added, has already taken its “tough decision” when it decided to stay in the nuclear agreement after the US under former President Donald Trump unilaterally quit it in May 2018, and then reimposed sanctions on Iran.
It was Iran’s “big and difficult” decision that has allowed so far to preserve the deal, formally known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Araqchi said.
Now it is time for Iran’s counterparts to take their “tough decisions” after six rounds of meetings of the JCPOA Joint Commission, he added.
On Saturday, the spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry Saeed Khatibzadeh said the country will not negotiate endlessly, and urged the US to abandon the “failed legacy” of Trump.
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