IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi warned US officials against returning to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran this week, during his visit to Washington, in a last-ditch effort by Israel to influence the ongoing negotiations between the US and Iran in Vienna.

The IDF chief of staff arrived in the United States on Sunday and has spent the past two days meeting with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon, according to the military.

The Israeli Chief of Staff presented the failures of the current nuclear deal, which allows Iran to make significant progress in the coming years in the quantity and quality of centrifuges and the quantity and quality of enriched uranium, and stressed the absence of oversight over Iran in the field of developing a nuclear weapon, according to the Israeli army statement.

Kochavi's visit to the United States, which was postponed due to the Gaza war last month, comes at a time when indirect talks between Washington and Tehran intensified, after the election of Ibrahim Raisi last week as Iran's president.

The current and former Israeli governments have voiced opposition to the United States' return to the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which former US President Donald Trump scrapped in 2018 and put in place a strict sanctions that prompted Iran to abandon the agreement a year later.

US President Joe Biden has stated his intention to return to the agreement, provided that Tehran returns to compliance with it as well. The Biden administration has said it plans to use the JCPOA as a springboard to broker a "longer and stronger" nuclear deal, although critics say that once the United States eases sanctions on Iran as it returns to the JCPOA, Tehran will have no incentive to negotiate anymore.

Several delegations of Israeli officials, including former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, have traveled to the United States in recent months in an effort to dissuade the Biden administration from returning to the agreement.

In the past, US officials have said that concerns raised by Israel during these talks will not change the White House's plans.