Israel’s Mossad Pushes for US 'Improving’ Iran Nuclear Deal

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, AP
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, AP
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Israel’s Mossad Pushes for US 'Improving’ Iran Nuclear Deal

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, AP
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, AP

US and Israeli officials are meeting increasingly in Washington to discuss ongoing talks with Iran in Vienna, where American diplomats are in indirect negotiations with Iran on a return to compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Harboring strong national security fears, Israel is actively pushing for improving the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program and guarantees the cleric-led country does not obtain nuclear arms.

Several media outlets have reported on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top Biden administration officials meeting on Thursday with the chief of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, Joseph (Yossi) Cohen.

According to the reports, Blinken attended the meeting along with his newly confirmed deputy, Wendy Sherman, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and two other senior officials, Brett McGurk from the National Security Council and Derek Chollet from the State Department.

Meanwhile, Cohen and Israeli Ambassador to the US Gilad Erdan represented Israel.

State Department Spokesman Ned Price declined to comment on the two-hour meeting or even confirm that it had happened.

He, however, said the Biden administration is committed to coordination and transparency with Israel in its nuclear diplomacy with Iran.

A White House readout of that meeting said the US had “updated Israel on the talks in Vienna and emphasized strong US interest in consulting closely with Israel on the nuclear issue going forward.”

Price, for his part, reaffirmed that the Biden administration was aware of the US and Israel sharing a common interest in ensuring Iran never possesses a nuclear weapon.

“So we have conducted ourselves with a great deal of transparency, knowing that the United States and Israel share a common interest here, of course, and that is seeing to it – again, as I said before – that Iran is verifiably and permanently prevented from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” he told a press briefing.

Thursday’s meeting was the second time senior officials from the two countries discussed the matter in Washington this week.

“Israel sought to convince the Biden administration to pursue an improved treaty that stops Iran from obtaining nuclear arms rather than simply restore compliance to the 2015 deal,” officials familiar with the meeting said.

It is worth noting that on Tuesday, Sullivan, McGurk, Chollet, and US special envoy for Iran Rob Malley met Erdan and Israeli national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat to discuss Iran and other regional matters.



Irish University to Cut Links with Israel Over Gaza War

 A picture taken from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip shows an Israeli tank rolling along the border fence on June 4, 2025. (AFP)
A picture taken from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip shows an Israeli tank rolling along the border fence on June 4, 2025. (AFP)
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Irish University to Cut Links with Israel Over Gaza War

 A picture taken from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip shows an Israeli tank rolling along the border fence on June 4, 2025. (AFP)
A picture taken from Israel's border with the Gaza Strip shows an Israeli tank rolling along the border fence on June 4, 2025. (AFP)

Ireland's prestigious Trinity College Dublin said on Wednesday that it would cut all links with Israel in protest at "ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law".

The university's board informed students by email on Wednesday that it had accepted the recommendations of a taskforce to sever "institutional links with the State of Israel, Israeli universities and companies headquartered in Israel".

The recommendations would be "enacted for the duration of the ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law", said the email sent by the board's chairman Paul Farrell, and seen by AFP.

The taskforce was set up after part of the university's campus in central Dublin was blockaded by students for five days last year in protest at Israel's actions in Gaza.

Among the taskforce's recommendations approved by the board were pledges to divest "from all companies headquartered in Israel" and to "enter into no future supply contracts with Israeli firms" and "no new commercial relationships with Israeli entities".

The university also said that it would "enter into no further mobility agreements with Israeli universities".

Trinity has two current Erasmus+ exchange agreements with Israeli universities: Bar Ilan University, an agreement that ends in July 2026, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which ends in July 2025, the university told AFP in an email.

The board also said that the university "should not submit for approval or agree to participate in any new institutional research agreements involving Israeli participation".

It "should seek to align itself with like-minded universities and bodies in an effort to influence EU policy concerning Israel's participation in such collaborations," it added.

Ireland has been among the most outspoken critics of Israel's response to the October 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel by Hamas that sparked the war in Gaza.

Polls since the start of the war have shown overwhelming pro-Palestinian sympathy in Ireland.

In May 2024, Dublin joined several other European countries in recognizing Palestine as a "sovereign and independent state".

It then joined South Africa in bringing a case before the International Court of Justice in the Hague accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza -- charges angrily denied by Israeli leaders.

In December, Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar ordered the closure of the country's embassy in Dublin, blaming Ireland's "extreme anti-Israel policies".