The Foreign Ministers of France and Germany held talks with Israeli leaders Monday to discuss United States President Donald Trump’s threat to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran.

Both German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and his French counterpart Yves-Jean Le Drian have made clear that, although efforts are being made to constrain Iran’s ballistic missile program, they are not seeking to change the agreement itself.

Last week Le Drian told reporters: “We are totally determined to make sure that the Vienna deal is respected… But at the same time, we can’t exclude the Iranian responsibility in the missile proliferation and the very questionable role of Iran in the whole Middle East region.”

However, Le Drian is reported to have told Netanyahu that he was disappointed with the inflexibility of the Iranian position after a recent visit to Tehran. Before the meeting, the Prime Minister said both countries needed to stand together against “terror- sponsoring regimes wherever they are,” in reference to Iran.

Israel’s Channel 10 news reported that Netanyahu told the visiting diplomats that the U.S. will withdraw from the deal unless significant progress was made to deal with Iran’s ballistic missile program, site inspections and the “sunset clause,” whereby Iran is free to build a nuclear weapon after the nuclear deal expires. President Trump has given the European signatories a deadline of May 12 to fix what he terms the “terrible flaws” of the deal.

Mass explained that Germany thinks having a deal is better than the alternative, Netanyahu replied: “The Munich agreement from 1938 was also a deal.”

(via BICOM)

[Photo: BICOM]