Framework Iran n-deal may brew nuclear risk: Israel

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that any framework agreement between Iran and the international community must recognise Israel's right to exist.

"Israel demands that any final agreement with Iran will include a clear and unambiguous Iranian commitment of Israel's right to exist," the prime minister said.

"Israel will not accept an agreement which allows a country that vows to annihilate us to develop nuclear weapons," the Israeli leader said, stressing that "I want to make it clear to all that the survival of Israel is non-negotiable".

Netanyahu issued the statement following a three-hour meeting with members of his outgoing cabinet, which unanimously objected to the proposed deal presented in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Thursday evening, Xinhu news agency reported.

"The deal would pose a grave danger to the region and to the world and would threaten the very survival of the state of Israel," said Netanyahu, a known hardliner regarding Iran and its nuclear ambitions.

"The deal would legitimise Iran's illegal nuclear programme," the Israeli prime minister said.

"It would leave Iran with a vast nuclear infrastructure and lift sanctions almost immediately at the same time that Iran is stepping its aggression and terror in the region," he said, referring to Iran's alleged support to militant groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi rebels in Yemen and Hamas in Gaza.

The Israeli prime minister also said on Friday the plan would enable Iran to have enough enrichment capacities to develop nuclear bombs in less than a year and would allow Iran at the same time to recover financially, what he charged would allow it to "propel its aggression and terrorism throughout the Middle East".

The prime minister expressed his stern objection to the framework agreement in an overnight telephone conversation with US President Barack Obama on Thursday, saying a deal based on the framework agreement would "increase the risks of nuclear proliferation in the region and the risks of horrific war".

Obama called Netanyahu within hours of the deal being struck, saying it represented significant progress toward a lasting solution that cuts off Iran's path to a nuclear weapon.

But Netanyahu said in a statement after the conversation that a deal based on the framework announced in Lausanne, Switzerland, "would threaten the survival of Israel".

"This deal would legitimise Iran's nuclear programme, bolster Iran's economy and increase Iran's aggression and terror throughout the Middle East and beyond," Netanyahu told Obama.

"It would increase the risks of nuclear proliferation in the region and the risks of a horrific war."

Israel has said in the past that it would consider taking unilateral action to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, a warning taken to mean that it could launch air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities.

While that rhetoric has died down over the past year or more, the head of Israel's military planning directorate Maj. Gen. Nimrod Sheffer said there was still a possibility.

"The military option has always been on the table, as we have said all along," Sheffer said on Friday. "If it has not been mentioned much in the media recently, that does not reflect a change in policy."