Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid is reportedly coming to Washington next week to continue high-level talks with the administration of President Joe Biden about re-entering the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
According to Axios, Lapid's office confirmed the scheduled trip where he is supposed to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Vice President Kamala Harris to encourage the United States to produce a ''plan B'' in the event talks with Iran are unsuccessful.
Former President Donald Trump unilaterally ended U.S. involvement in the 2015 accord made during the administration of his predecessor, President Barack Obama.
Biden, who served as Obama's vice president, campaigned on returning the U.S. into the deal, which was designed to limit Iran's nuclear capabilities.
Since Biden took office, both countries have engaged in indirect talks about re-entering the agreement, but those talks stalled after the Iranian election in June that installed hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi as president.
Sullivan met with his Israeli counterpart, Eyal Hulata, on Tuesday at the White House, reaffirming the strength of the U.S.-Israeli partnership.
The meeting was "an excellent discussion of global and regional challenges and opportunities facing our two countries,'' Sullivan said in a Twitter post Tuesday.
According to Axios, top Israeli officials are pushing the United States to enact further sanctions on Iran and asking the Biden administration to make clear that the U.S. is a ''credible military threat'' should Iran proceed with its nuclear program.
''We told the Americans that without those two things, the Iranians won't have any incentive to go back to the 2015 nuclear deal," an Israeli official told Axios.
As Israeli and U.S. officials hold talks on the deal and issues in the region, Axios reported that Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was speaking to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow.
Before meeting with the Iranian foreign minister, Lavrov reportedly talked to Blinken, and later reported that Iran said the talks would resume soon.
According to a Reuters report Tuesday, however, Iran may be stalling the talks to get more leverage.
"Iran will eventually return to the talks in Vienna,'' an anonymous senior Iranian official said in the Reuters story. ''But we are in no rush to do so because time is on our side. Our nuclear advances further every day."
The 2015 deal limited Iran's ability to make enriched uranium, necessary for nuclear weapons, getting the United States to lift some of its sanctions.
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