Netanyahu turns up volume as Iran deadline nears

JERUSALEM

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a fresh call on April 23 for an overhaul of the Iran nuclear deal as U.S. President Donald Trump’s deadline for further Iranian concessions edged closer.

Trump has threatened to tear up the 2015 agreement that lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs to its nuclear activity, unless it curbs its ballistic missile program by May 12.

“Israel will not allow regimes that seek our annihilation to acquire nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu told an audience of diplomats in a speech in Jerusalem.

“This is why this deal has to be either fully fixed or fully nixed,” he said in English.

Iran says it is ready to relaunch its nuclear program - which the West suspects is designed to produce a bomb - if Trump kills the deal.

Netanyahu said the 2015 agreement leaves Iran able to quickly reboot its nuclear program to enable military production.

“It gives Iran a clear path to a nuclear arsenal,” he said.

“It allows, over a few years, unlimited enrichment of uranium, the core ingredient required to produce nuclear bombs.”

The United States delivered much the same message on April 23, at a meeting of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in Geneva.

Iran insists it never intended to build a nuclear weapon.