Israel pushes US to scrap Iran deal - Reuters

Reuters is reporting that the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is stepping up pressure on the US to pull out of the Iran denuclearisation deal after evidence was given to the US that Iran had been secretly developing nuclear weapons despite making statements to the contrary.

Key quotes

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday stepped up pressure on the United States to pull out of a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, presenting what he called evidence of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program in a primetime address on Israeli TV."

"Intelligence experts and diplomats said he did not seem to have presented a “smoking gun” showing that Iran had violated the agreement, although he may have helped make a case on behalf of hawks in the U.S. administration who want to scrap it."

"Netanyahu said he had shared the intelligence with the United States and would dispatch envoys to France and Germany to present it. He also spoke by phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin."

"Much of what Netanyahu presented is unlikely to surprise world powers, which have long concluded that Iran was pursuing atomic weapons before the agreement was signed in 2015: that is in part why they imposed sanctions in the first place."

"The French ambassador to Washington, Gerard Araud, tweeted that information about past Iranian nuclear activity was in fact an argument in favor of the nuclear deal, not against it."