Report: Netanyahu Leaked Iran Talks Info

The cloud over Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress darkened further Monday with another report that Washington has decided to limit Israeli access to information about the Iran negotiations, due to suspicions that sensitive material has been leaked.

U.S. officials are no longer likely to “share the latest information about U.S. strategy in the talks” because Netanyahu’s office had given Israeli journalists details of a U.S. offer to allow Iran to enrich uranium with 6,500 or more centrifuges as part of a final deal, wrote Washington Post editor David Ignatius.

“Obama administration officials believed these reports were misleading because the centrifuge numbers are part of a package that includes the size of the Iranian nuclear stockpile and the type of centrifuges that are allowed to operate. A deal that allowed 500 advanced centrifuges and a large stockpile of enriched uranium might put Iran closer to making a bomb than one that permitted 10,000 older machines and a small stockpile, the administration argues.”

U.S. and Israeli officials denied reports in the Israeli media on Sunday saying that Israel had been cut out of briefings on the progress of the negotiations. They insisted nothing had changed and consultations with Israeli officials were continuing as before.

They pointed to the fact that Philip Gordon, Middle East director for the National Security Council, was slated to meet with Israeli national security adviser Yossi Cohen on Monday.

However, even if formal contacts continue, it does not necessarily mean that the administration would be as forthcoming as in the past.

Asked for comment, an official in Netanyahu’s office told Ignatius: “The details of the last round of negotiations are known in Washington, Paris, London, Moscow, Beijing, Berlin and Tehran. It is perplexing that a decision would be made to try to keep those details a secret from Yerushalayim when Israel is threatened by Iran with annihilation and its very survival could be threatened by a bad deal.”

Meanwhile, in Yerushalayim, Netanyahu defended his position at a meeting with a delegation of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

“If there is someone who thinks it is a good deal, why is there a need to hide it?” he asked.

This article appeared in print on page 6 of the February 17th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.