Netanyahu says Israel "not bound" by Iran nuclear deal

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned on Tuesday the nuclear deal reached with Iran, saying Israel is not obliged to adhere to the deal and will act to defend itself.

"Israel is not bound by this deal with Iran, because Iran continues to seek our destruction," Netanyahu told a news conference at his Jerusalem office, adding that "we will always defend ourselves."

Netanyahu slammed the agreement as a "stunning historic mistake," noting that the international community "attempted to prevent a rogue regime from acquiring nuclear weapons" but failed.

Netanyahu, a known opponent of the deal, said that by not dismantling Iran from its nuclear power, "this deal will give an unreformed, unrepentant regime the ability to produce an arsenal of nuclear weapons."

"We did make an obligation to prevent Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons and we will stick with this commitment," Netanyahu said earlier today, possibly alluding to a preemptive Israeli airstrike on Iranian nuclear facilities which he had hinted at in the past.

Netanyahu also charged that under the new deal, Iran will receive hundreds of billions of dollars as a result of the removal of the economic sanctions, through which he claimed it could "fuel its terror machine" and what he said was the Islamic country's aggression across the Middle East.

The P5+1 countries and Iran started negotiating on the latter's nuclear program in mid-2013 and reached an interim agreement (which Netanyahu also referred to as a historic mistake) in November 2013.

In April, the parties introduced the outline of a final agreement, and announced the final deal will be signed by June 30. After two extensions, news broke out on Tuesday morning that a deal has been reached.

After long negotiations in Vienna, both sides agreed that the international community would remove the economic sanctions from Iran at the start of 2016; if Iran breaks the agreement, the sanctions would be reinstated within 65 days.

Furthermore, the arms embargo on iran will remain for five years and the Islamic state would allow supervision of all of its nuclear and military sites.

Netanyahu had focused on the Iranian nuclear program in his past years as prime minister, calling it an "existential threat" to the state of Israel, whereas Iran vows its nuclear program is aimed at peaceful purposes. Endit