According to the Israel Hayom newspaper, US Secretary of State Atony Blinken and Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen discussed different issues, including the revival of the nuclear agreement.
Blinken said that the administration was likely to seek the EU to join the effort to up the sanctions on Iran, the daily reported, adding that Cohen welcomed this and reiterated Israel's view that the pressure on Iran should be increased and that the US should not rejoin the accord, from which President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018.
Iran and the P5+1 group (the US, the UK, France, Russia, China plus Germany) reached an agreement in 2015 on Iranian nuclear activities, but the Trump administration withdrew from the deal in 2018. The negotiations in Vienna, Austria, to revive the accord have not yielded any fruit yet because of the US’s hesitation to abide by its commitments under the agreement.
Both ministers further discussed the issue of the so-called normalization of ties with the Zionist regime. The two agreed that the so-called Negev Forum of the Abraham Accords' foreign ministers should reconvene in Morocco in March.
However, Blinken and Cohen, who conversed for about 40 minutes, agreed that it was doubtful Saudi Arabia would join the forum at this point, and therefore the focus would be on having African states with no official ties to Israel join the Morocco meeting, the Israel Hayom reported.
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