Israel hopes to undo Iran deal with Trump

Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu says he's hopeful of working with Donald Trump to undo the Iran nuclear deal, although Iran has warned this could lead to war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  in Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Source: AAP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he believes US President-elect Donald Trump can work with him to dismantle the international nuclear agreement with Iran.

"I know Donald Trump," Netanyahu told CBS's 60 Minutes in an interview scheduled to air Sunday night. "And I think his attitude, his support for Israel is clear. He feels very warmly about the Jewish state, about the Jewish people."

While the two countries are close allies, relations were sometimes tense between Netanyahu and President Barack Obama because of their vastly different world views on the Iran deal and other issues.

Netanyahu said in the interview he "had differences of opinion" with Obama and the "most well-known, of course, is Iran."

The Israeli prime minister has been one of the fiercest critics of the nuclear deal. During the campaign, Trump also spoke harshly about it.

Trump called the nuclear pact a "disaster" and "the worst deal ever negotiated" and has signalled he will take a harder line on Iran.

Israel's comments come as Iran's defence minister Hossein Dehghan said Trump's election has led to unease over threats to peace in the Middle East and warned a war would destroy Israel and the small Gulf Arab states.

"Even though a businessman, the assistants that ... (Trump) has chosen may map a different path for him, and this has led to unease, particularly among Persian Gulf countries," Dehghan told a security conference in Tehran, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency.

Iran has long backed armed groups committed to Israel's destruction and its leaders have called for it to be wiped off the map. Israel fears that Iran's nuclear program is designed to threaten its existence.

Netanyahu said there are "various ways of undoing" the 2015 deal, in which Iran agreed to limits on its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions on its oil industry and finances.


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Published 12 December 2016 10:00am
Source: AAP


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