Assessment: “[Iran’s nuclear] progress is so significant that it’s essentially impossible to turn back the clock in its nuclear program to the point it was two or three years ago …
Several Western diplomats on Sunday said Iran was now between four to six weeks away from the “breakout time” it needs to amass enough fissile material for a single nuclear weapon, although they cautioned it was still about two years from being able to weaponize it.
The warning came as world powers and Iran expect to return to Vienna on Monday for a last-ditch effort to salvage a 2015 nuclear deal, but few expect a breakthrough as Tehran’s atomic activities rumble on in an apparent bid to gain leverage against the West.
Diplomats say time is running low to resurrect the original deal with world powers – the US, Great Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia.
Israel is worried Iran will secure a windfall in sanctions relief but will not sufficiently roll back projects with bomb-making potential.
“Israel is very worried about the readiness to remove the sanctions and to allow a flow of billions [of dollars] to Iran in exchange for unsatisfactory restrictions in the nuclear realm,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told his cabinet in televised remarks on Sunday.
“This is the message that we are relaying in every manner, whether to the Americans or to the other countries negotiating with Iran,” he said.
