Obama: Deal can’t hinge on Iran recognizing Israel

A nuclear deal with Iran cannot be predicated upon recognition of the state of Israel, President Obama says in a new interview airing Monday.

“The notion that we would condition Iran not getting nuclear weapons in a verifiable deal on Iran recognizing Israel is really akin to saying that we won’t sign a deal unless the nature of the Iranian regime completely transforms,” Obama tells NPR News.

“And that is, I think, a fundamental misjudgment,” he said.

{mosads}The Obama administration and international negotiators on Thursday announced they had reached a framework agreement that would scale back Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Since then, members of the administration have been selling the merits of the deal to the public and skeptical members of Congress, in order to get them to hold off on legislative oversight actions that could derail a final deal.

The inclusion of an additional condition — that Iran reverse its policy of not recognizing Israel as a state — would complicate the administration’s efforts to reach a final agreement by June 30.

Obama said expecting a wholesale change in the Iranian regime in not realistic.

“I want to return to this point: We want Iran not to have nuclear weapons precisely because we can’t bank on the nature of the regime changing,” he said.

“That’s exactly why we don’t want [them] to have nuclear weapons. If suddenly Iran transformed itself to Germany or Sweden or France, then there would be a different set of conversations about their nuclear infrastructure,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been making his own pitch to international leaders and Congress about why they should oppose the deal.

He said the accord, as laid out last week in a framework agreement, would “absolutely” threaten the survival of Israel. He called on Obama and other Western leaders to step up their demands on Iran to protect Israel and other countries in the region.

“I think this is a dream deal for Iran, and it’s a nightmare deal for the world,” Netanyahu said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”

Obama called the agreement a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” in an interview with The New York Times released Sunday.