The nuclear talks between Iran and the 5+1 group (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) are scheduled to resume in Moscow on June 29 and 30, while the Western side has intensified its lobbying activities with the Zionist regime. 

 

The briefing European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the Baghdad talks clearly indicated how worried the major powers are about satisfying Israel on the sensitive issue. Senior members of the Israeli government, including members of extremist political parties, attended the meeting between Ashton and Netanyahu. 

 

Gaining the support of Israel has been so important for the Westerners that they have arranged numerous trips to Tel Aviv over the past few months to discuss the issue with Israeli officials. After the Baghdad sessions, the next destination of U.S. representative to the talks Wendy Sherman was not Washington but Tel Aviv.

 

All this shows that Israel is playing a role in the negotiations with Iran and is the invisible member of the group. And without any exaggeration, it can also be said that it is the most influential member.  

 

A quick review of Western media reports and analyses on the issue of the talks indicates that they are in the interests of Israel and not the international community, whose interests should be protected during the talks with Iran. 

 

Israel, which is the only player in the Middle East that possesses nuclear weapons, is constantly warning that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to the Zionist regime, while the Iranian government has always denied the accusations and maintains that its nuclear program is totally peaceful. 

 

Bearing all this in mind, it can be said that the 5+1 group’s serious endeavor to protect the interests of Israel is the main reason for the failure of the talks over the past few years. This has always been manifested in Israeli officials’ position on any potential agreement between Iran and the West. 

 

Thus, Western governments should distance themselves from Israel, if they can, so they can hammer out a lasting deal with Iran. Otherwise, no promising achievement can be expected to come out of the Moscow talks.

 

Mojtaba Sadeghian is a Tehran Times columnist who is a member of the editorial department of the daily.