WASHINGTON — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trekking to DC on Tuesday for high-stakes talks with President Trump amid speculation that he’s anxious over US negotiations with Iran.
Netanyahu was initially slated to meet with Trump later this month, but he expedited those plans to huddle with the president Wednesday — as American and Iranian negotiators touted a positive meeting in Oman last week.
“On this trip, we will discuss a series of issues: Gaza, the region, but of course, first and foremost, the negotiations with Iran,” Netanyahu said in a statement before beginning his trip.
“I will present to the President our positions regarding the principles of the negotiations, the important principles, and in my view, they are important not only for Israel, but for everyone in the world who wants peace and security in the Middle East,” the PM said.
Iran — in its nuclear-arms talks with the US — has floated the possibility of making compromises on its enriched uranium stockpiles but continued to rule out making concessions on its missile programs or the backing of terrorist groups across the Middle East.
Foe Israel has meanwhile been adamant that any deal with Iran address its ballistic missile program and support for terrorist proxies across the region.
Netanyahu’s trip to DC this week will be his seventh visit to Washington during Trump’s second term.
Trump’s Mideast special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner have been leading the negotiations between Iran and the US, communicating through mediators with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
“They had a very good meeting with a very high representative of Iran, and we’ll see how it all turns out,” Trump told reporters last week, reiterating that Tehran can’t obtain a nuclear weapon.
Trump ripped up the prior nuclear deal — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — with Iran brokered under the Obama administration and has repeatedly sought a new one with the theocratic regime.
The developments come weeks after mass protests that erupted across Iran late last year as the country struggles with a currency depreciation and an inflation crisis.
As a result of the deadly crackdown by Iran on its own people, Trump assembled what he described as a “massive armada” within striking distance of the regime.
The president warned Jan. 2 that if Iran violently “kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue.”
But thus far, he has declined to intervene militarily in Iran, though he has claimed to have gotten the regime to pledge not to carry out hundreds of executions, something Tehran appeared to dispute.
Despite refraining from using force against Tehran now, Trump has shown a willingness to hit Iran in the past.
In June, Trump ordered the Operation Midnight Hammer bombing of multiple Iranian nuclear sites, which he claimed decimated Tehran’s nuclear weapons program.
Netanyahu and Trump are also expected to discuss the president’s Board of Peace for Gaza, a proposed group that would include several countries such as Turkey and Qatar, who have rattled Israel.