The Iran nuclear program’s Arak heavy water reactor. Photo: Nanking2012 via Wikimedia Commons.

i24 News – Israel issued a bleak warning to the United States recently, highlighting that Iran is on the verge of becoming a nuclear threshold state, i.e. one that could begin to manufacture atomic weapons, according to a report on Kan 11 News on Sunday.

The lull in the talks that have taken place over several rounds in Vienna regarding Iran’s nuclear program does not mean that the situation is static.

Indeed, several senior Israeli officials, including Foreign Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz, relayed the message of the Jewish state’s concerns to their US counterparts — Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett supposedly said in internal meetings that Iran is in fact accelerating its actions on the nuclear issue, reported Israeli outlet Arutz 7.

A senior diplomat said, “Something needs to happen regarding the negotiations with Iran. This ‘limbo’ cannot continue a time when Iran is advancing rapidly to the point where it is a threshold state.”

The Islamic Republic took the view in 2018 that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was void after former President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the deal, claiming that Iran was in breach of the agreed-upon nuclear thresholds and amid worries over Iran’s ballistic missile program.

Israel has consistently warned the United States and the international community about Iran’s atomic ambitions, including IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kohavi’s recent Washington trip to brief US officials, where he torched the plan to return to the nuclear deal.