BERLIN—Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid arrived in Germany on Sunday in his latest diplomatic effort to persuade Western powers to ditch their tattered nuclear deal with the Jewish state’s arch nemesis Iran.
Israel has long opposed a revival of the 2015 accord, which has been moribund since then US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew in 2018 and reimposed biting sanctions on Tehran.
Momentum that built towards a restored agreement last month appears to have slowed, after the three European nations party to the agreement — Germany, France and Britain — on Saturday raised “serious doubts” about Iran’s sincerity in restoring the deal.
Meeting his cabinet before flying to Berlin, Lapid thanked the three countries for the “strong position” they had voiced in a tripartite statement on Saturday.
The European nations charged that Tehran “has chosen not to seize this critical diplomatic opportunity”, adding that “instead, Iran continues to escalate its nuclear programme way beyond any plausible civilian justification”. Iran’s foreign ministry criticized those comments as “unconstructive.”
Lapid told his cabinet that “Israel is conducting a successful diplomatic campaign to stop the nuclear agreement and prevent the lifting of sanctions on Iran.