WASHINGTON • President Joe Biden will tell Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at the White House on Thursday that Washington shares Israel’s concern that Iran has accelerated its nuclear program but remains committed for now to diplomacy with Tehran.

Briefing reporters on their first face-to-face talks, a U.S. official said: “Since the last administration left the Iran nuclear deal, Iran’s nuclear program has just dramatically broken out of the box, and it’s accelerating from week to week.”

Iran has more advanced centrifuges and uranium stockpiles as well as technology so that nuclear “breakout” — the capability to produce a bomb — “is now down to just a few months,” the official said and added the two leaders would discuss “what to do about it.”

The administration was increasingly alarmed by Iran’s nuclear activities, the official said, but signaled that Biden was sure to reject any entreaties from Bennett to halt efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear accord.

“We, of course, committed to a diplomatic path,” the official said amid stalled negotiations with Iran, where a new hardline president has taken power.

“We think that is the best way to put a ceiling on the program and roll back the gains that Iran has made over recent years on the nuclear side.”

“If that doesn’t work, there are other avenues to pursue,” the official added, without elaborating.

Despite differences, U.S. and Israeli officials alike have expressed hope the White House meeting will set a positive tone between Biden, who took office in January, and Bennett, a far-right politician who ended Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year run as prime minister in June.

This would stand in sharp contrast to years of tensions between Netanyahu, who was close to Republican President Donald Trump, and the last Democratic administration led by Barack Obama with Biden as vice president.

The Biden administration puts much of the onus for tensions with Iran as well as its nuclear advances on Trump’s decision to scrap involvement in the nuclear deal negotiated under Obama.

Bennett’s visit gives Washington an opportunity to demonstrate business as usual with its closest Middle East ally while it contends with the chaotic situation in Afghanistan, Biden’s biggest foreign policy crisis since taking office.

Iran will top the agenda, with Bennett — who arrived in Washington on Tuesday — expected to push for a hardened U.S. approach to Israel’s regional archenemy.

In a report seen last week by Reuters, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran had accelerated uranium enrichment to near weapons-grade. Iran has consistently denied seeking a nuclear bomb.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin greets Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett as he arrives Wednesday at the Pentagon in Washington.

the associated press