Netanyahu has been a vocal critic of the Iranian nuclear talks. Obama rejects Netanyahu's call for Iran to recognize Israel

President Barack Obama is rejecting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for Iran to recognize the state of Israel as part of a final nuclear deal.

“The notion that we would condition Iran not getting nuclear weapons in a verifiable deal on Iran recognizing Israel is really akin to saying that we won’t sign a deal unless the nature of the Iranian regime completely transforms. And that is, I think, a fundamental misjudgment,” Obama said in an interview with NPR on Monday.


On Friday, Netanyahu, a vocal critic of the Iranian nuclear talks, said that a nuclear deal with Iran must include “unambiguous Iranian recognition of Israel’s right to exist.” The Obama administration announced that the U.S., Iran and other world powers had reached a preliminary ‘framework’ agreement on Thursday.

“I want to return to this point: we want Iran not to have nuclear weapons precisely because we can’t bank on the nature of the regime changing. That’s exactly why we don’t want [Iran] to have nuclear weapons. If suddenly Iran transformed itself to Germany or Sweden or France then there would be a different set of conversations about their nuclear infrastructure,” Obama told NPR.

The full interview between the president and NPR will be published on Tuesday.