Seeking French support, Netanyahu raises alarm over Iran enrichment plan

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought on Tuesday to convince European states to abandon a nuclear deal with Iran, saying that Tehran’s threats to increase uranium enrichment capacity showed it still planned to destroy Israel.

He arrived in Paris for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as part of a tour to persuade the European signatories – Britain, France and Germany – to follow Washington’s lead in scrapping the accord that they signed with Tehran in 2015.

The three European states are currently scrambling to save the deal – under which Iran promised to curb its nuclear programme in return for lifted sanctions – seeing it as the best chance to stop Tehran developing a nuclear bomb.

But Israel argues that Iran has duped the West and plans to use the break from sanctions to build up its financial reserves before returning to its nuclear plans.

“The day before yesterday Ayatollah Khamenei, the ruler of Iran, declared his intention to destroy the State of Israel. Yesterday he explained how he would do this – with the unrestricted enrichment of uranium in order to produce an arsenal of nuclear bombs,” Netanyahu said in a video statement on Twitter.

“We are not surprised. We will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons,” he said.

On Sunday, Khamenei’s office tweeted what appeared to be an old quote from Iran’s top leader that referred to Israel as a “malignant cancerous tumour” that needed to be removed.

A day later, Khamenei said he had ordered preparations to increase uranium enrichment capacity if the nuclear agreement fell apart after the U.S. withdrawal. He did not mention any plans for “unrestricted” enrichment or refer to an arsenal.The European states have been trying to come up with a package to ring-fence trade with Iran against renewed U.S. financial sanctions to dissuade Tehran from quitting the accord.

But they are struggling to convince firms to remain in Iran or create the financial instruments that could even enable them to do so.

“If Iran does not get the financial guarantees in oil and access to the financial system, then I don’t see Iran sticking to the deal because the pressure from hardliners is only increasing,” said a Western official.

“It is quite possible they will resume enrichment capacity and research and development of advanced centrifuges to show the Europeans and the world that they are serious.”

French officials said Macron would tell Netanyahu that the threat to increase enrichment merely highlighted the need to keep the accord to stop Iran getting an atomic weapon.

Israel is presumed to have its own sizable nuclear arsenal but neither confirms nor denies it.