MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th August, 2021) Former US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro has been appointed as a senior adviser to the State Department's group on Iran, the Axios media outlet reported on Monday, citing a high-ranking official.
"Dan's experience and knowledge of the region and the fact that people in the region know him will help us in thinking about the regional aspects of the Iranian issue and will contribute a lot to our coordination with Israel," the State Department official told the outlet.
Shapiro began working as a part-time senior adviser to the US Special Envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, last week and has advised the State Department on a number of issues before the meeting between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet last Friday, according to the source.
The diplomat's nomination reflects his close links to some Israeli officials, including Bennett, the outlet said, recalling some media reports over the past few months hinted that he might be appointed US special envoy on normalization of ties between Israel and the Arab countries.
The Biden-Bennett meeting on Friday discussed the situation with the Iran nuclear deal, signed in 2015 and which obliges Tehran to scale back its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. In 2018, Washington, one of the parties to the agreement, which also include Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom - plus Germany, and the European Union, abandoned the deal and stepped up hard policies against Tehran. Iran, in response,� stopped complying with its obligations under the agreement.
