US veteran diplomat Kissinger criticizes possible return to Nuclear deal with Iran

The new US administration should not return to the same Iran deal’s spirit, which could spark an arms race in the Middle East, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger said Monday, The Jerusalem Post reported.

“We should not fool ourselves. I don’t believe that the spirit [of the Iran deal], with a time limit and so many escape clauses, will do anything other than bring nuclear weapons all over the Middle East and therefore create a situation of latent tension that sooner or later will break out,” the 97-year-old diplomat added.

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“The test case is the evolution of nuclear capacities in Iran. If these can be avoided, I do not say we shouldn’t talk to them,” he added.

Centrifuge machines in the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran. (File photo: AP)

Kissinger added that the US should not give up on what has recently been achieved in the agreements between the Arab world and Israel.

“I would tell the incoming administration that we are on a good course. The accords have opened a window of opportunity for a new Middle East,” Kissinger said.

He added that the Arab countries understood that they could not survive in constant tension with parts of the West and Israel, so they decided they had to take care of themselves.

Normalization with Israel show that the four states taking part “have concluded that their national interests transcend their ideological interests,” added Kissinger.

He added that the Palestinians need to give up on their “ultimate aims” and look for possible interim achievements.

Kissinger served under the Presidents, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford from 1969 to 1976, as advisor for national security affairs, and secretary of state. He won the Nobel Prize in 1973, negotiating with North Vietnam, to end the Vietnam War.

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