By Rami Ayyub
JERUSALEM, May 25 (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told confidants in private conversations that Israel has little ability to influence Donald Trump’s decision-making on Iran as the U.S. president negotiates a deal in the nearly three-month-old war, two sources said.
Netanyahu’s comments, described to Reuters by two Israeli officials with knowledge of the conversations, come as Israel has largely been left out of talks to reach an initial deal to halt a war that began with joint U.S.-Israeli bombardment.
Both the U.S. and Iran have played down hopes for an imminent breakthrough in talks, and they remain at odds over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Tehran’s demands for the lifting of sanctions and Israel’s war in Lebanon with Hezbollah militants.
Netanyahu is demanding the right to continue operations against perceived threats on all fronts, including Lebanon, a caveat that could derail a deal if Iran insists on a complete halt to Israeli military operations in southern Lebanon.
NETANYAHU WILL ‘DO WHATEVER I WANT HIM TO DO’, SAYS TRUMP
One of the Israeli officials, involved in Netanyahu’s private conversations, said the Israeli leader had expressed concerns about the memorandum of understanding currently being negotiated. Both of the sources spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
The agreement would see Iran open the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the U.S. lifting its naval blockade, a senior Trump administration official said, followed by further negotiations on nuclear issues. The U.S. and Iran have been holding indirect talks mediated by Pakistan.
Iranian sources have told Reuters that in future stages, “feasible formulas” could be found to resolve the dispute over its highly enriched uranium stockpile, including diluting the material under the supervision of the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
Despite the agreement not immediately addressing Israel’s concerns over Iran’s nuclear programme and stockpile, Netanyahu acknowledges that Israel “has no manoeuvre to influence the president right now,” the Israeli official said.
Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump and Netanyahu have spoken by phone at least three times in the last week, a period during which Israeli officials said the country had made preparations for a return to joint air strikes with the U.S. on Iran, targeting energy infrastructure.
After the first of their three conversations, on Tuesday night, Trump was asked by reporters what he told Netanyahu.
“He’s a very good man, he’ll do whatever I want him to do,” Trump said.
The two men spoke again on Friday night. On Saturday, after Trump held a joint call with leaders from the Gulf, Turkey and Pakistan to update them on the status of the Iran negotiations, Trump and Netanyahu spoke for a third time.
After that call, Netanyahu, who had yet to publicly comment on any emerging deal with Iran, said in a statement that he and Trump discussed the “memorandum of understanding to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the upcoming negotiations toward a final agreement on Iran’s nuclear program”.
Netanyahu said he and Trump “agreed that any final agreement… means dismantling Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites and removing its enriched nuclear material from its territory”.
He also said Trump “reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself against threats on every front, including Lebanon”.
Israel and Hezbollah have continued fighting despite an April 16 ceasefire, struck after the U.S. and Iran agreed to a broader truce.
Israeli troops have remained deployed across a swathe of southern Lebanon and the military has continued to carry out air strikes targeting Hezbollah, while the militants have fired drones towards troops and into northern Israeli towns.
NETANYAHU UNDER PRESSURE BEFORE ELECTION
The deal’s emergence comes at a sensitive time for Netanyahu ahead of a national election he is projected to lose. His opponents have criticised him for having failed to achieve his stated objectives in the war.
At the start of the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28, Netanyahu said Israel aimed to create the conditions to topple Iran’s clerical government, eliminate its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, and cripple its ability to project power across the region.
Trump gave a final order to launch the Iran operation after Netanyahu argued in a conversation with the U.S. president for their forces’ joint killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Reuters has reported. Khamenei was killed in the first strikes.
Israeli and U.S. war objectives have diverged since then, with the U.S. focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which before the war had carried a fifth of global shipments of oil and liquefied natural gas.
In a CBS TV interview this month, Netanyahu stressed that more needed to be done to ensure enriched uranium exits Iran, that it ends its support for regional proxies, and that it stops producing ballistic missiles.
“… there’s work to be done,” Netanyahu said.
(Reporting by Jerusalem bureau; writing by Rami AyyubEditing by Gareth Jones)
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