President Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday for the second time in six weeks. Their last meeting was at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on December 29.. File Photo courtesy Office of the Prime Minister of Israel/UPI | License Photo
U.S. President Donald Trump was set to hold talks with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Wednesday as the Middle East watches and waits for the United States’ next move after Trump threatened Iran with military action over its nuclear program.
The meeting, their sixth of Trump’s administration, demonstrates the degree to which crises involving Israel, from Gaza to Iran, have been front and center for both men over the past year.
Netanyahu felt it was so critical to have Trump’s ear regarding U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations that resumed Friday in Oman that he brought forward his trip by a week.
“I will present to the president our outlook regarding the principles of these negotiations — the essential principles, which, in my opinion are important not only to Israel, but to everyone around the world who wants peace and security in the Middle East,” Netanyahu said before departing Israel on Tuesday.
Those essentials were being taken to mean any deal struck must curb uranium enrichment by Tehran and tackle its extensive ballistic missile arsenal and backing of regional proxies Hamas and Hezbollah.
While Netanyahu has lobbied successive U.S. administrations to shackle Iran’s malign influence in the region, and in particular its nuclear ambitions, on grounds it poses an existential threat to Israel, his relationship with Trump is much closer than with his predecessors.
“The prime minister believes that any negotiations must include limiting ballistic missiles and ending support for the Iranian axis,” said Netanyahu’s office in a statement.
Ahead of the talks in Oman, U.S. officials set out a similar list they said they wanted to bring to the table.
Tehran has indicated willingness to scale back its nuclear program, provided economic sanctions are lifted but has flat out refused to entertain efforts to include other issues with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi boasting his team kept Friday’s talks “exclusively nuclear.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned Wednesday that Iran would “not yield to their [the United States’] excessive demands.”
Netanyahu received a briefing on the Oman talks after arriving in Washington on Tuesday from lead U.S. negotiators Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.
Netanyahu’s visit comes as the United States increases its military presence in the Middle East, with Trump warning Tehran of strikes if it fails to reach a deal on its nuclear programme and to stop killing protesters.
Trump has massed a huge U.S. naval force in the Gulf, headed by the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, to pressure Tehran to halt a deadly crackdown on protesters that began in late December and to come to the negotiating table.
He issued an ultimatum to Iran’s leadership on Jan. 30, saying the two things it needed to do to prevent a U.S. attack were “Number one, no nuclear. And number two, stop killing protesters.”
On Tuesday, Trump ratcheted up the pressure, saying he was weighing up the idea of sending a second aircraft carrier strike group to the region.
“We have an armada that is heading there and another one might be going,” Trump told Axios, adding that Iran “wants to make a deal very badly.”
However, he stressed that he believed the situation could still be resolved through diplomacy.
This week in Washington
Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks during a press conference at the Department of Justice Headquarters on Friday. Justice Department officials have announced that the FBI has arrested Zubayr al-Bakoush, a suspect in the 2012 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
