Gantz to Harris: Any Iran Deal Must Have IAEA Enforcement

Any revival of the 2015 Iran Iran nuclear deal must allow for the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor compliance, Defense Minister Benny Gantz told U.S. Vice President Kamela Harris when they met on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

“I expressed my gratitude to President [Joe] Biden and the Vice President for their commitment to preventing a nuclear Iran,” Gantz said after the meeting. “I told her that any future agreement must include consistent enforcement by the IAEA in addition to handling the open files in the nuclear program.”

Gantz is in Munich to both address the conference on Sunday and to hold wide-ranging diplomatic meetings on the possibility of the pending Iran deal, the possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Abraham Accords and the stalled Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Gantz said he also thanked Harris for the important role played by the United States in maintaining stability in the Middle East, in the face of regional aggression perpetrated by Iran and its proxies. They also discussed the importance of expanding the Abraham Accords, the situation in the Ukraine, and the importance of pursuing confidence-building measures with the Palestinians.

He said that he also “updated the Vice President on a series of steps I plan to take in order to deepen cooperation with our neighbors in the region.”

Israel is braced for the possibility that the United States is prepared as early as possibly this week to accept a watered-down revival of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed between Tehran and the six world powers: the U.S., Russia, China, Germany, France and Great Britain.

The former Trump administration exited the deal in 2018, and the Biden administration has sought to rejoin it through a negotiation process held in Vienna.