Benjamin Netanyahu meets Donald Trump to discuss Iran deal at UN

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump met in New York on Monday night to discuss what the Iran nuclear deal that both men hate.

The agreement was negotiated between Iran, the U.S, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany in 2015.

It limits the Islamic Republic’s abilities to make a nuclear bomb and extends international inspections, in return for a lifting of sanctions.

However Netanyahu and Trump have long campaigned against it, with Trump last year telling pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC that “my number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran”.

Before the meeting, Netanyahu said to Trump: “I look forward to discussing how we can address together what you rightly called the terrible nuclear deal with Iran and how to roll back Iran’s growing aggression in the region, especially in Syria.”

Following the meeting, and before addressing the UN General Assembly in New York, Netanyahu said: “There is an American willingness to fix the deal, and I presented a certain course of action how to do it.”

Trump and Netanyahu are alone in wanting to tinker or “dismantle” the nuclear deal, however, especially after international inspectors most recently said that Iran was complying with its terms and obligations.

French President Emmanuel Macron and his foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian this week said that the accord was “essential” and scrapping it would launch a regional arms race.

Iranian President Hassan Rohani told CNN that the U.S would pay a “high cost” if it withdrew from the nuclear deal now, arguing that to do so would “chip away at international trust placed in the Unites States of America”.

Meanwhile the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has dropped off the radar, with Trump’s envoy Jason Greenblatt saying: “Instead of working to impose a solution from the outside, we are giving the parties space to make their own decisions.”

Netanyahu, who last month promised that Israel would remain in the West Bank forever, said this week: “Peace between the Palestinians and Israel would be a fantastic achievement, and we are giving it an absolute go.

“I think Israel would like to see it. I think the Palestinians would like to see it. I can tell you the Trump administration would like to see it. So we’re working very hard on it.”