Washington: A day after reaching a framework agreement with Iran, the Obama administration on Friday sounded upbeat about the prospect of a final deal within three months over the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme.
“I do think there’s a lot of work to be done, but we are confident that we can get those details in place,” White House spokesperson Eric Schultz told reporters traveling with President Barack Obama aboard Air Force One from Salt Lake City to Washington.
Iran and the six major world powers — Britain, France, Russia, the US, China plus Germany — agreed on Thursday on parameters to resolve major issues on Iran’s nuclear programme, following eight days of intense negotiations in the Swiss city of Lausanne, with a view to sealing a final comprehensive accord by the end of June.
Under the preliminary deal, Iran agrees on limits on its nuclear activities and regular inspections in exchange for suspending sanctions by the US and the European Union and the lifting of all UN Security Council’s past sanction resolutions.
Obama called the framework deal a “good” one that meets US “core objectives” and would cut off “every pathway that Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a vocal critic of the ongoing negotiations with Iran, told Obama on Thursday over the phone that the framework deal “poses a grave danger to Israel, the region and the world” and that “a deal based on this framework would threaten the survival of Israel”.
“Israel demands that any final agreement with Iran will include a clear and unambiguous Iranian commitment of Israel’s right to exist,” Netanyahu said on Friday.
“I haven’t seen that request,” Schultz said, adding that “we understand his position, and the president would never sign on to a deal that he felt was a threat to the state of Israel. That was one of his guiding posts on this”.