Berlin: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu embarks Monday on a three-day European tour in Germany set to be dominated by strategic differences on Iran, as leaders attempt to rescue the nuclear deal after US withdrawal.

With partners in Berlin, Paris and London still reeling from President Donald Trump’s decision last month to exit the hard-fought 2015 accord, Netanyahu is expected to seek European cooperation on a still-to-be-determined Plan B.

“The aim to prevent Iran from developing any kind of nuclear capacity was always the foundation of international policy on Iran,” Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Jeremy Issacharoff, told AFP ahead of the visit.

Issacharoff said that despite “differences of opinion” on how to achieve the aim of hemming in Iran on nuclear matters, “we share the same goal”.

Germany, France and Britain are three of the signatories of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between world powers and Iran, aimed at keeping Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Netanyahu, who has railed against the deal which offers sanctions relief in exchange for strict limits on Iran’s nuclear activities, will hold talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin in the late afternoon, followed by a joint news conference.

He will continue on to Paris for meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday and British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday.

In the face of the US retreat, all three leaders strongly defend the agreement as the best way to head off a regional arms race and have vowed with Russia and China, the two other signatory countries, to keep it alive.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas huddled with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Thursday and insisted that Berlin “wants to maintain the nuclear agreement and make sure Iran maintains it too”.

At the same news conference, Wang launched an unvarnished attack on US reliability in global affairs under Trump.

“It is a truism of international law that international accords must be respected... (and) major countries must set an example, not do the opposite,” he said.

Supporters also fear the reimposition of US sanctions could hit European firms that have done business with Iran since the accord was signed.

Merkel has acknowledged that while European powers see the JCPOA as the best guarantee against an Iran with nuclear weapons, it is “not perfect”.

The Europeans have proposed hammering out a supplementary deal with Tehran covering its ballistic missile programme as well as its interventions in countries such as Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Western powers view Iran’s meddling as destabilising for the region while Israel sees it as a direct threat to its existence.

“I will discuss with them ways to block Iran’s nuclear aspirations and Iran’s expansion in the Middle East,” Netanyahu said last week of his European meetings, noting the issues were “crucial to Israel’s security”.

Israel is considered the leading military power in the Middle East and believed to be the only country in the region to possess nuclear weapons.

Iran calls on world to stand up to Trump

The world should stand up to Washington’s bullying behaviour, Iran’s foreign minister was quoted as saying on Sunday by state media in a letter to counterparts, as the top diplomat intensifies efforts to save a nuclear deal after a US exit.

In a letter from Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to his counterparts last week, he asked “the remaining signatories and other trade partners” to “make up for Iran’s losses” caused by the US exit, if they sought to save the deal.

“The JCPOA (nuclear deal) does not belong to its signatories, so one party can reject it based on domestic policies or political differences with a former ruling administration,” Zarif was quoted as saying in the letter, parts of which were published by the state news agency IRNA on Sunday.

The nuclear deal was the result of “meticulous, sensitive and balanced multilateral talks”, Zarif said, and could not be renegotiated as the United States has demanded.

He said US “illegal withdrawal” from the deal and its “bullying methods to bring other governments in line” with that decision have discredited the rule of law in international arena.

Iran’s top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has set out a series of conditions on for European powers if they want Tehran to stay in the nuclear deal, including steps to safeguard trade with Tehran and guarantee Iranian oil sales.