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| Photo Credit: AP. |
US President Joe Biden said Thursday that the United States will not wait forever to strike a deal with Iran over its nuclear program.
Mr Biden who was speaking in Israel said he is hoping for a diplomatic solution to the crisis. The comments come a day after he said he would be willing to employ the use of force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
“When that
will come, I’m not certain,” Biden said at a news conference with Israeli Prime
Minister Yair Lapid, The Associated Press reports. “But we’re not going to wait
forever.”
“I continue
to believe that diplomacy is the best way to achieve this outcome,” he said.
Lapid said Iran
should be made to face a real threat of force in order to give up on its
nuclear program.
“The Iranian
regime must know that if they continue to deceive the world they will pay a
heavy price,” Lapid said at the news conference, The Associated Press reported.
“The only way to stop them is to put a credible military threat on the table.”
Lapid said he was in agreement with Biden on dealing with Iran over its nuclear weapons.
“I don’t
think there’s a light between us,” he said, according to The Associated Press.
“We cannot allow Iran to become nuclear.”
The Biden
administration had negotiated the deal in 2015 but it was ditched by the Trump
administration in 2018. Iran opposed the Obama era agreement on grounds that it
would expire and the agreement didn’t address Iran’s ballistic missile program
or military activities in the region.