'Freeze nuclear activity for at least 10 years' - US president tells Iran

United States president, Barack Obama has called on Iran to freeze their nuclear activities for the next 10 years.

The Guardian UK reports that the president urged the nation to commit to a verifiable freeze of at least 10 years on its nuclear activity for a landmark atomic deal to be reached, but stated that the odds were still against sealing a final agreement.

Obama said that a rift over Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to congress opposing the Iran deal on Tuesday was a distraction that would not be “permanently destructive” to US-Israeli ties.

Acknowledging a substantial disagreement between both governments over how to achieve their shared goal of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Obama said:

“If, in fact, Iran is willing to agree to double-digit years of keeping their programme where it is right now and, in fact, rolling back elements of it that currently exist … if we’ve got that, and we’ve got a way of verifying that, there’s no other steps we can take that would give us such assurance that they don’t have a nuclear weapon,”

He further emphasised that the US goal is to make sure “there’s at least a year between us seeing them try to get a nuclear weapon and them actually being able to obtain one''

With the current tension in the Middle East, a comprehensive nuclear deal is seen as crucial to reducing the risk of an escalating war moreso now that Iran is deeply involved in conflicts in Syria and Iraq.