Amid U.S.-Iran talks, Netanyahu says Iran's entire nuclear program must go

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday repeated calls for Iran's entire nuclear infrastructure to be dismantled, as Washington and Tehran engage in talks for a nuclear accord.

The United States and Iran have so far held three rounds of indirect talks, mediated by Gulf state Oman, aimed at sealing a deal that would block Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon but also lift crippling economic sanctions imposed by Washington.

After talks in Rome earlier this month, Oman said that the U.S. and Iran were pursuing an accord that would see Tehran "completely free" of nuclear weapons and sanctions but "maintaining its ability to develop peaceful nuclear energy."

Netanyahu said the only "good deal" would be one that removed "all of the infrastructure" akin to the 2003 agreement that Libya made with the West that saw it give up its nuclear, chemical, biological and missile programmes.

Israeli officials have long vowed to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, an assertion Netanyahu repeated.

Israel has not ruled out attacking Iran's nuclear facilities in the coming months despite President Donald Trump telling Netanyahu that the U.S. was for now unwilling to support such an operation,

Reuters reported on April 19, citing an Israeli official and two other sources familiar with the matter.

Netanyahu, speaking late on Sunday in Jerusalem, said that he had told Trump that any nuclear agreement reached with Iran should also prevent Tehran from developing ballistic missile.

An Iranian official told Reuters this month that Tehran saw its missile programme as the main sticking point in U.S. talks.

Iran in April 2024 and again in October 2024 attacked Israel with drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles after Israel had killed Iranian generals and officials from Iranian proxies.

"We are in close contact with the United States. But I said, one way or the other, Iran will not have nuclear weapons," Netanyahu said at a conference organised by the Jewish News Syndicate, referring to a conversation he had with Trump.

Israel's prime minister also said Sunday that Israeli warplanes last year intercepted Iranian aircraft headed toward Syria, preventing them from delivering troops meant to assist the country’s embattled president at the time, Bashar Assad.

The remarks in a speech gave a new glimpse into Israel's thinking in the final days in power for Assad, a longtime enemy who was overthrown by insurgents last December.

Netanyahu claimed that arch-rival Iran wanted to save Assad after watching the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group in neighboring Lebanon suffer heavy losses in fighting with Israel.

“They had to rescue Assad,” Netanyahu said, claiming that Iran wanted to send “one or two airborne divisions” to help the Syrian leader.

“We stopped that. We sent some F-16s to some Iranian planes that were making some routes to Damascus,” he said. “They turned back.”

He gave no further details.

In fighting last fall, Israel detonated hundreds of booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah, days before assassinating the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

Netanyahu told the crowd that he pushed forward the pager attacks after Israel learned that Hezbollah had grown suspicious and sent some of the devices to Iran for testing.

“I said, 'We’ll have to do it right away,” he said.

Israel and a weakened Hezbollah reached a ceasefire in November, ending more than a year of fighting. Israeli forces remain in parts of southern Lebanon.