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US Keeping Some Details of Iran Nuclear Talks From Israel


FILE- White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest answers a question during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington.
FILE- White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest answers a question during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington.

The United States said Wednesday it has been withholding some details of nuclear talks with Iran from Israel to prevent those details from possibly being made public and distorted.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters there is "no question" that some of the things Israel has said about the U.S. negotiating position have not been accurate.

"The United States is not going to be in a position of negotiating this agreement in public, particularly when we see that there is a continued practice of cherry-picking specific pieces of information and using them out of context to distort the negotiating position of the United States," Earnest told reporters Wednesday.

At the State Department, spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed the U.S. does not share everything with Israel and is therefore withholding some details of the negotiations with Iran.

But both officials stressed that top Obama administration officials will continue frequent and routine contact with Israel and that Israeli security is a priority for the United States.

The U.S. and its so-called P5+1 allies -- Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia -- are facing a June deadline to work out a deal with Iran to cut its uranium enrichment program in exchange for lifting sanctions that have devastated the Iranian economy.

Iran has consistently denied wanting to build a nuclear bomb.

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