Unsurprisingly Iran hard-liners and Israel reject nuclear deal. (DS).
CAIRO: Hard-liners in Iran and the Israeli government both condemned the framework deal on curbing Tehran’s nuclear program Friday, from opposite directions but for the same reason: The agreement, they said, gives away too much.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the understandings fail to outright shut down any of Iran’s nuclear facilities, while legitimizing its uranium enrichment program and leaving it with an infrastructure that could eventually be capable of producing a bomb.
He warned the deal “threatens the very survival” of Israel, and put forward a new demand, that any final deal include Iran’s recognition of Israel’s right to exist.
Iran’s powerful hard-liners, meanwhile, pointed to the heavy restrictions that would effectively lock those facilities and enrichment into a slow, low gear for at least a decade. They accused the government of moderate President Hassan Rouhani of surrendering a nuclear program that Iran has boasted for years demonstrates its technological prowess, self-sufficiency and defiance of the West.
“We gave up a race-ready horse and we got in return a broken bridle,” Hossein Shariatmadari, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and editor of the hard-line Kayhan newspaper, told the semi-official Fars news agency.
Iran’s hard-liners, who dominate most of the country’s institutions and the military and security forces, have opposed negotiations with the West from the start. But their ability to stop the deal is hampered if Khamenei is willing to see it go through – still an open question.
Ahmad Tavakkoli, a prominent conservative lawmaker, wrote a letter to Rouhani Thursday saying the agreement needs ratification by the country’s conservative-dominated parliament. Supporters of the negotiations argue that the talks were conducted under Khamenei’s direct supervision and therefore don’t require parliamentary approval. Read the full story here.
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