Benjamin Netanyahu Benjamin Netanyahu Israel turns to France to prevent bad nuclear deal with Iran as Paris appears to disagree with Washington on strategy with Tehran

Israel has turned to France in order to prevent a bad nuclear deal with Iran from emerging, according to press reports.

Top Israeli envoys were sent to Paris to confer with their French counterparts after tensions arose between France and the United States over negotiation strategy, leading the Israelis to find an ally in Europe.

According to the reports, France seems to be the best hope for Israel at a time when its relations with the American administration are tense. France’s officials reportedly have been stridently opposed to the direction of the current negotiations and are greatly concerned about signing a deal that would grant too much relief to Tehran.

France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Saturday that Paris is pushing for a nuclear deal with Iran that would ensure Tehran would not be able to build an atomic weapon in the future.

“France wants an agreement, but a robust one that really guarantees that Iran can have access to civilian nuclear power, but not the atomic bomb,” Fabius told Europe 1 radio on Saturday.

The French minister added that “if the accord is not sufficiently solid then regional countries would say it’s not serious enough, so we are also going to get the nuclear weapon, and that would lead to an extremely dangerous nuclear proliferation.”

France has taken a tougher line on an Iran deal almost from the beginning, insisting on significant concessions from Tehran in the framework of an agreement.

European officials have noted that if Paris has its way, the deal would be signed for 25 years, in contrast to the United States which is only aiming for a deal that would expire in a decade.

Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs, Yuval Steinitz, told Israel radio that he is flying to Paris on short notice, and may also hold meetings with other European countries to state Israel’s concerns. “This is an effort to prevent a nuclear deal that is bad and full of loopholes, or at least…to succeed in closing or amending some of these loopholes,” said Steinitz, who is being accompanied by Israeli National Security Advisor Yossi Cohen.

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