Obama: Iran nuclear framework deal ‘will make world safer’

US President Barack Obama on Thursday extolled the “historic understanding” reached between world powers and Iran in Lausanne, Switzerland after a week of marathon negotiations.

The president said the deal involved intense inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities, elimination of its enriched uranium stockpiles and shutdown of most centrifuges, and would put Iran at least a year away from a nuclear weapon.

“It is a good deal, a deal that meets our core objectives” he said, speaking in the White House’s Rose Garden shortly after negotiators announced the breakthrough.

The president said the agreement called for “robust” and “unprecedented” inspection of Iran’s nuclear facilities which would make it “far more likely” world powers would know if Tehran tried to covertly produce nuclear weapons.

“If Iran cheats, the world will know it,” he said.

Obama said the deal, “if fully implemented,” would prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and would make “our country, allies and world safer.”

He pointed out that diplomatic efforts to thwart Iran’s nuclear program had brought the world to America’s side, and that sanctions brought Iran to the table but couldn’t prevent Tehran from getting the bomb alone.

“Our work is not yet done, the deal is not yet signed,” he said, noting that negotiators would iron out the details of the arrangement over the coming months.

Obama said he would speak to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday evening by phone and assure him that there was no daylight between the US and Israel concerning the Jewish state’s security and Iran’s regional ambitions.

“There will be no daylight, there is no daylight” between the US and Israel on security, he said, and the US would continue to stand with Israel in the face of Iran’s “destabilizing policies” and threats.

He said that military action to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran would only result in regional conflict and set Iran’s nuclear program back less than the new agreement does.

In a thinly veiled reference to Netanyahu’s skepticism over the nuclear deal’s effectiveness in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, Obama asked whether war was preferable to a diplomatic solution to the strand-off with Iran.

It was “no secret” that he and Netanyahu do not agree on how to thwart Iran, said the president, but if the Israeli prime minister “is looking for the most effective way to ensure” that Iran not attain a nuclear weapon, then this deal, he said, “is our best option by far.”

Earlier in the evening, before the announcement of the framework agreement was made, Netanyahu tweeted that “Any deal must significantly roll back Iran’s nuclear capabilities and stop its terrorism and aggression.”