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Israel PM Heads to Berlin for Fresh Pitch against Iran Deal

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid chairs the weekly cabinet meeting, in Jerusalem, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. (AP)
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid chairs the weekly cabinet meeting, in Jerusalem, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. (AP)
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Israel PM Heads to Berlin for Fresh Pitch against Iran Deal

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid chairs the weekly cabinet meeting, in Jerusalem, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. (AP)
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid chairs the weekly cabinet meeting, in Jerusalem, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. (AP)

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid was headed to Germany Sunday in his latest diplomatic effort to persuade Western powers to ditch their tattered nuclear deal with the Jewish state's arch nemesis Iran.

Israel has long opposed a revival of the 2015 accord, which has been moribund since then US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew in 2018 and reimposed biting sanctions on Tehran.

Momentum that built towards a restored agreement last month appears to have slowed, after the three European nations that are party to the agreement -- Germany, France and Britain -- on Saturday raised "serious doubts" about Iran's sincerity in restoring the deal.

Meeting his cabinet before flying to Berlin, Lapid thanked these three powers for the "strong position" they had voiced in a tripartite statement on Saturday.

The European parties charged that Tehran "has chosen not to seize this critical diplomatic opportunity", adding that "instead, Iran continues to escalate its nuclear program way beyond any plausible civilian justification". Iran's foreign ministry criticized those comments as "unconstructive."

Lapid told his cabinet that "Israel is conducting a successful diplomatic campaign to stop the nuclear agreement and prevent the lifting of sanctions on Iran.

"It is not over yet," he added. "There is still a long way to go, but there are encouraging signs."

An Israeli diplomatic official, who requested anonymity, told AFP that Iran will be the focus of the talks when the delegation lands in Berlin.

"It's important to continue to coordinate positions and to influence the European position. Germany has an important role in this," the official said.

Lapid, who was traveling with senior security officials, is scheduled to meet Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier before returning to Israel late Monday.

The 2015 agreement, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, gave Iran sanctions relief in return for restricting its nuclear program.

Negotiations underway in Vienna since April 2021 have sought to restore the agreement, by lifting the sanctions on Tehran and pushing Iran to fully honor its prior nuclear commitments.

Israel insists Iran would use revenue from sanctions relief to bolster allied groups capable of attacking Israelis, notably the Hezbollah party in Lebanon, and Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two key Palestinian militant organizations.

Last month, the European Union, which acts as the mediator of the nuclear talks, put forward a "final" draft of the agreement.

Iran and the US then took turns to respond to the text, with Washington saying on Friday that Tehran's reply was a step "backwards".

Lapid, whose late father survived the Holocaust, is also traveling with a delegation of survivors who will join him and Scholz on a visit to Wannsee, site of a 1942 conference where top Nazi officials finalized plans to send Jews to death camps.

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Monster Hurricane Milton Threatens an Already Battered Florida

The streets are nearly empty as Hurricane Milton churns in the Gulf of Mexico on October 07, 2024 in Tampa, Florida. (Getty Images via AFP)
The streets are nearly empty as Hurricane Milton churns in the Gulf of Mexico on October 07, 2024 in Tampa, Florida. (Getty Images via AFP)
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Monster Hurricane Milton Threatens an Already Battered Florida

The streets are nearly empty as Hurricane Milton churns in the Gulf of Mexico on October 07, 2024 in Tampa, Florida. (Getty Images via AFP)
The streets are nearly empty as Hurricane Milton churns in the Gulf of Mexico on October 07, 2024 in Tampa, Florida. (Getty Images via AFP)

The Category 4 Hurricane Milton was expected to grow larger on Tuesday as it threatened Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on its way to Florida, where more than a million people were ordered to evacuate from its path.

The densely populated west coast of Florida, still reeling from the devastating Hurricane Helene less than two weeks ago, braced for landfall on Wednesday.

The US National Hurricane Center projected the storm was likely to hit near the Tampa Bay metropolitan area, home to more than 3 million people and where some evacuees rushed to dispose of mounds of debris left behind by Helene on their way out of town.

With maximum sustained winds of 155 mph (250 kph), Milton was downgraded from a category 5 to a category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, according to the US National Hurricane Center's latest advisory early on Tuesday.

While fluctuations in intensity are expected, Milton is forecast to remain an extremely dangerous hurricane through landfall in Florida, according to the hurricane center. That means catastrophic damage will occur, including power outages expected to last days.

Fed by warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, Milton became the third-fastest intensifying storm on record in the Atlantic Ocean, the Hurricane Center said, as it surged from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in less than 24 hours.

Its path from west to east was also unusual, as Gulf hurricanes typically form in the Caribbean Sea and make landfall after traveling west and turning north.

"It is exceedingly rare for a hurricane to form in the western Gulf, track eastward, and make landfall on the western coast of Florida," said Jonathan Lin, an atmospheric scientist at Cornell University. "This has big implications since the track of the storm plays a role in determining where the storm surge will be the largest."

The Hurricane Center forecast storm surges of 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 meters) along a stretch of coastline north and south of Tampa Bay.

Jamie Rhome, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center, said Milton was expected to grow in size before making landfall on Wednesday, putting hundreds of miles of coastline within the storm surge danger zone.

Milton was likely to remain a hurricane for its entire journey across the Florida peninsula, Rhome told a Monday news briefing.

As of 10 a.m. CDT on Tuesday, the eye of the storm was 65 miles (105 km) north-northeast of Progreso, a Mexican port near the Yucatan state capital of Merida, and 585 miles (840 km) southwest of Tampa, moving east at nine mph (15 kph).

Milton was expected to pound the northern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula in the early hours of Tuesday.

The area is home to the picturesque colonial-era city of Merida, population 1.2 million, several Maya ruins popular with tourists and the port of Progreso.

In Florida, counties along the western coast ordered people in low-lying areas to take shelter on higher ground.

Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg, said it ordered the evacuation of more than 500,000 people. Lee County said 416,000 people lived in its mandatory evacuation zones. At least six other coastal counties ordered evacuations including Hillsborough County, which includes the city of Tampa.

With one final day for people to evacuate on Tuesday, local officials raised concerns of traffic jams and long lines at gas stations.

Relief efforts remain ongoing throughout much of the US Southeast in the wake of Helene, a Category-4 hurricane that made landfall in Florida on Sept. 26, killed more than 200 people and caused billions of dollars in damage across six states.