According to numerous reports, Israel and America will be discussing the possibility of joint military exercises to attack Iranian nuclear sites. These plans are being discussed just days after Washington met with Tehran to renew negotiations.
These drills are to be reviewed at a meeting between US military personnel and Israeli Defense Ministry Benny Gantz on Thursday. Reuters has reported that the report was made by a top member of Joe Biden’s administration.
Although the US official refused to give details, an earlier report from Israel’s Kan radio suggested that they might involve. “dozens” of aircraft – including F-35, F-16 and F-15 fighter jets, reconnaissance planes and refueling tankers – adding that they would be conducted far over the Mediterranean to simulate the distance the jets would have to travel to carry out a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, about 620 miles (1,000km).
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Kan asked the Israel Defense Forces not to comment, but Kan said that they would probably hold the drills sometime in 2022.
While Tehran long maintained that it does not intend to create nuclear weapons and its nuclear energy program is only for peaceful purposes, the US official stated that prospective exercises could be used to train for such a purpose. “worst-case scenario”Should the Islamic Republic go after the bomb, it should be against them.
“We’re in this pickle because Iran’s nuclear program is advancing to a point beyond which it has any conventional rationale,”Biden’s official stated that they could reverse the tide, however, he added that negotiations might still be possible.
The meeting with Gantz will come days after talks between Washington and Tehran resumed following a lengthy hiatus, with the two sides looking to revive a deal signed between Iran and world powers in 2015 that put strict limits on the country’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. After Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the 2018 agreement, Iran gradually reduced its obligations to it, insisting that they would only return to their terms if US sanctions were lifted. It has slowly increased its enrichment of Uranium. This was up to 20% last week according to International Atomic Energy Agency, although it is still far below the required 90% to make a nuclear weapon.
READ MORE: Iran issues nuclear deal demands
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