2nd LD: Israeli PM calls for rejection of bad nuke deal with Iran

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday called for rejection of a bad nuclear deal with Iran, insisting such an accord would allow the Islamic republic to develop nuclear bombs.

"We are better off" without a bad deal with Iran, the hawkish Israeli leader told a joint session of U.S. Congress, in a move that has further strained his often tense relationship with the Obama administration.

He claimed that a final negotiated deal will make "major concessions" to Iran by leaving it with "a vast nuclear infrastructure" and providing it with "a short break-out time to the bomb," as well as by lifting all the restrictions on its nuclear program in about a decade.

As Netanyahu was speaking, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was having another round of talks with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad-Javad Zarif in Switzerland, their second within days, as part of the intensifying efforts by the so-called P5+1 group of the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China plus Germany to map out the outlines of a comprehensive deal by the end of March and the final pact at the end of June.

Netanyahu told U.S. lawmakers that under the potential deal, " not a single nuclear facility would be demolished, thousands of centrifuges used to enrich uranium would be left spinning," and " thousands more would be temporarily disconnected, but not destroyed."

"Because Iran's nuclear program would be left largely intact, Iran's break-out time would be very short -- about a year by U.S. assessment, even shorter by Israel's," he said.

Break-out time is the time taken to enrich enough weapons-grade uranium or plutonium for a nuclear weapon.

The Israeli leader has called for dismantling Iran's uranium enrichment program under any deal, a goal the Obama administration terms impossible. Endite