TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is heading to Washington on Tuesday to encourage President Donald Trump to expand the scope of high-stakes nuclear talks with Iran. The negotiations resumed last week against the backdrop of an American military buildup.
Israel has long called for Iran to cease all uranium enrichment, dial back its ballistic missile program and cut ties to militant groups across the region. Iran has always rejected
those demands, saying it would only accept some limits on its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.
It's unclear if Iran's bloody crackdown on mass protests last month, or the movement of major U.S. military assets to the region, has made Iran’s leaders more open to compromise, or if Trump is interested in broadening the already difficult negotiations.
Netanyahu, who will be in Washington through Wednesday, has spent his decades-long political career pushing for stronger U.S. action toward Iran. Those efforts succeeded last year when the U.S. joined Israel in 12 days of strikes on Iran's military and nuclear sites, and the possibility of additional military action against Iran is likely to come up in this week’s discussions.
Netanyahu's visit comes just two weeks after Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East adviser, met with the prime minister in Jerusalem. The U.S. envoys held indirect talks in Oman with Iran's foreign minister on Friday.
“The Prime Minister believes that any negotiations must include limiting ballistic missiles and ending support for the Iranian axis,” Netanyahu's office said over the weekend, referring to Iran-backed militant groups like the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Years of nuclear talks have made little progress since Trump scrapped a 2015 agreement with Iran, with strong encouragement from Israel. Iran has shown little willingness to address the other issues, even after suffering repeated setbacks. But the meeting with Trump gives Netanyahu an opportunity to shape the process and may also bolster his standing back home.
“Clearly these are the days when decisions are being made, America is expected to complete its force buildup, and it’s trying to exhaust the prospect of negotiations,” said Yohanan Plesner, head of the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem-based think tank.
“If you want to have influence on the process, only so much can be done via Zoom.”
Trump threatened a military strike against Iran last month over the killing of protesters and concerns of mass executions, moving a number of military assets into the region. Thousands were killed and tens of thousands detained at Iranian authorities crushed the protests over widespread economic distress.
As the protests largely subsided, Trump shifted his focus to Iran's nuclear program, which the U.S., Israel and others have long suspected is aimed at eventually developing weapons. Iran insists its program is entirely peaceful and says it has the right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes.
Sima Shine, an Iran expert formerly with Israel's Mossad spy agency who is now an analyst at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, said Israel fears that the U.S. might reach a narrow agreement with Iran in which it would temporarily halt uranium enrichment.
A deal in which Iran halts enrichment for several years would allow Trump to claim victory. But Israel believes any such agreement that does not end Iran's nuclear program and reduce its ballistic missile arsenal will eventually require Israel to launch another wave of strikes, she said.
Iran might be unable to enrich uranium after last year’s strikes, making the idea of a temporary moratorium more appealing.
Some members of Netanyahu’s cabinet have signaled that unilateral action remains on the table for Israel even if a deal is reached that Trump hails as a victory, with Energy Minister Eli Cohen telling Army Radio on Tuesday that Israel views Iran’s ballistic missiles as a grave threat and “reserves the option to act” should an agreement not meet its security needs.
In November, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran was no longer enriching uranium due to the damage from last year's war. The U.S. and Israeli airstrikes killed nearly 1,000 people in Iran, while Iranian missile barrages killed almost 40 in Israel.
It's unclear how much damage was done to Iran's nuclear program. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have been unable to visit the bombed nuclear sites. Satellite images show activity at two of them.
Netanyahu, who faces elections later this year, has long touted his close ties to world leaders, particularly Trump, who he has praised as the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House. This week's meeting allows Netanyahu to show Israelis he is a player in the Iran talks.
“The issue of relations between Netanyahu and Trump will be the issue of the campaign, and he is saying, ‘Only I can do this, it’s only me,’” Shine said.
Netanyahu is Israel's longest-serving prime minister, having held the office for a total of over 18 years. His government, the most nationalist and religious in Israel's history, is expected to survive until the election in October, or close to it.
Netanyahu was originally scheduled to visit Washington next week for the Feb. 19 launch of Trump's Board of Peace, an initiative that was initially framed as a mechanism for rebuilding Gaza after the Israel-Hamas war but has taken on a larger mandate of resolving global crises.
Netanyahu agreed to join the initiative but is wary of it because it includes Turkey and Qatar, countries he does not want to have a presence in postwar Gaza because of their relations with Hamas.
Moving the visit up could provide an “elegant solution” that allows Netanyahu to skip the launch without offending Trump, Plesner said. Netanyahu's office declined to comment.
