By Anees Barghouthy
JERUSALEM
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country would not accept any Iranian nuclear deal that did not include Tehran's recognition of Israel's right to exist.
Speaking after a Friday cabinet meeting, Netanyahu slammed a framework deal signed Thursday between Iran and world powers as a "threat to Israel and the world."
"The [Israeli] Cabinet is united in strongly opposing the proposed deal. This deal would pose a grave danger to the region and to the world and would threaten the very survival of the state of Israel," he asserted.
He also said the framework agreement would lend international legitimacy to Iran's nuclear program.
"The deal will not shut down a single nuclear facility in Iran, will not destroy a single centrifuge in Iran, and will not stop research and development on Iran's advanced centrifuges," Netanyahu said.
"On the contrary," he added, "the deal will legitimize Iran's illegal nuclear program. It will leave Iran with a vast nuclear infrastructure."
He went on: "The deal will lift sanctions almost immediately – and this at the very time that Iran is stepping up its aggression and terror in the region and beyond the region."
Netanyahu added that Israel would not accept any future agreement that did not include Iran's recognition of Israel's right to exist.
"Iran is a regime that openly calls for Israel's destruction and openly and actively works towards that end," he said.
"Israel will not accept an agreement that allows a country that vows to annihilate us to develop nuclear weapons, period," he added.
"In addition," he said, "Israel demands that any final agreement with Iran include clear and unambiguous Iranian recognition of Israel's right to exist."
Asked by reporters in Washington about Netanyahu's demand, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said that the agreement is "only about the nuclear issue."
"We have purposefully kept that separate from every other issue," she said. "This is an agreement that doesn't deal with any other issues, nor should it, and that's what we're focused on."
On Thursday evening, Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers – the U.S., China, France, Russia, the U.K. and Germany – unveiled a preliminary framework for talks aimed at curbing Tehran's nuclear program.
They have set themselves a June 30 deadline for reaching a deal.
Following the announcement, U.S. President Barack Obama hailed the negotiations with Iran as "historic."
Netanyahu has repeatedly voiced his rejection of a nuclear deal with Iran, claiming such an agreement would endanger his country's security.
