© Provided by Washington Examiner President Joe Biden's advisers pledged his "unwavering support" for Israeli operations against Iranian threats, White House officials emphasized following a high-level meeting in Washington.
"The United States and Israel agreed on the significant threat posed by Iran's aggressive behavior in the region, and U.S. officials underscored President Biden's unwavering support for Israel's right to defend itself," the administration said in a statement released after the Tuesday conversations.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with Israeli national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat at their embassy in Washington. The meeting coincided with a political uproar sparked by a leaked recording in which Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif claims that former Secretary of State John Kerry, now Biden's point man for climate policy, notified him of Israeli operations against the regime's forces in Syria.
Sullivan's team put an emphasis on countering Iranian terrorist threats. "The United States and Israel agreed to establish an inter-agency working group to focus particular attention on the growing threat of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Precision Guided Missiles produced by Iran and provided to its proxies in the Middle East Region," the White House readout adds.
'THIS CERTAINLY WAS NOT SECRET': STATE DEPARTMENT DEFENDS JOHN KERRY OVER IRAN LEAKS CLAIM
The counterterrorism conversation took place in the context of a disagreement about the value of the 2015 nuclear deal. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's team is in the midst of "indirect" talks with Iranian officials in Vienna, where the signatories to the pact are trying to broker the return of the U.S. and Iran to the accord.
"The U.S. and Israeli officials discussed their serious concerns about advancements in Iran's nuclear program in recent years," Sullivan's team added. "The United States updated Israel on the talks in Vienna and emphasized strong U.S. interest in consulting closely with Israel on the nuclear issue going forward."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regards the deal in its original form as an unjustified victory for the Iranian nuclear program. "The instructions to the senior security officials that are flying to Washington for talks is to present Israel's opposition to the agreement in Iran and not to negotiate over it because we are talking about a return to the previous agreement that is dangerous for Israel and the region," the Times of Israel quoted an Israeli official as saying last week.
Sullivan's team portrayed the meeting as a positive one. "It was great to finally welcome Meir and his delegation here in Washington," White House coordinator for the Middle East Brett McGurk tweeted.
Biden hopes that the nascent efforts to restore the plan will set the stage for follow-on negotiations about a wider range of "malign Iranian behavior," as Blinken's team has put it.
"We do remain from there focused on lengthening and strengthening the provisions of that deal, and from there, working on addressing other areas of malign Iranian behavior, whether it is Iran's ballistic missile program, whether it is its support for terrorism, whether it is its egregious violations of human rights," State Department spokesman Ned Price said last week. "Those latter areas are certainly areas where we think we have a good deal of partnership and seek to leverage cooperation with our allies and partners, including our partners in the region."
Proponents of former President Donald Trump's erstwhile maximum pressure campaign fear that the agreement to restore the deal will entail the lifting of the sanctions needed to compel Iran to negotiate on other matters, but Netanyahu's team is signaling interest in those talks.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
"If in the future there are serious contacts on Iran's part over an improved agreement, Israel will state its position on the characteristics and content that such an agreement should have," the Israeli official told local press.
Tags: News, Foreign Policy, National Security, Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran Nuclear Deal, Israel, Jake Sullivan, John Kerry
Original Author: Joel Gehrke
Original Location: Biden's top security adviser meets Israeli officials amid Kerry-Zarif uproar