Israeli officials have expressed their alarm about mixed messages from the Biden administration on restarting negotiations with Iran to rejoin the 2015 nuclear accord without strengthening it, according to a report.

They cited their concerns after US Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley discussed the return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action without additional elements that would make it “longer and stronger,” the Jerusalem Post reported.

“The goal is to see whether we can agree on what steps the United States needs to take to come back into compliance with the nuclear deal and what steps Iran has to take to come back into compliance with the nuclear deal,” Malley said in a Friday interview with PBS NewsHour.

Last month, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the administration was not going to make any initial “concessions” to the Islamic Republic as it seeks to restore some semblance of the accord, according to Roll Call.

Regarding Team Trump’s maximum-pressure campaign against Iran, Malley said the US is “going to have to lift those sanctions that are inconsistent with the deal that was reached with Iran… so that Iran enjoys the benefits that it was supposed to enjoy under the deal.”

He added on PBS: “It’s not a matter of who has the greater weight, it’s whether both sides are prepared to carry the burden that they have to come back into compliance.”

Malley also warned against the US or Iran being too resolute in their positions.

“If either side takes a maximalist position and says that the other side has to do everything first before it’s going to move one inch, I think it’s hard to see how this succeeds,” he said.

While acknowledging that Iranian nuclear scientists have more experience than in 2015 due to their violations of the accord, Malley did not suggest any solutions, saying only that there will be “difficult discussions about what we need to do so that we and others… are satisfied that Iran is back in compliance with the commitments that it made.”

A senior Israeli official told the Jerusalem Post that “if this is American policy, we are concerned,” adding that Malley’s interview “raised eyebrows” at the highest echelons in the government.

“In the past, the Biden administration talked about a ‘longer and stronger’ deal – like they were looking for something else – and that’s not [in the Malley interview]. It’s all about returning to the 2015 deal,” the official said.

“Nowhere in the entire interview does Malley say the goal is to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons,” the source said. “Nowhere does he accuse the Iranians of any bad behavior… Nowhere in the interview does he talk about the importance of consultations with American allies in the region,” the source told the Israeli paper.

“In the old deal, snapback sanctions disappear in 2025,” the official added. “In 2030, all nuclear restrictions end. Even the Europeans say it’s terrible that Iran is developing uranium metal. That becomes legal in 2030. Is that the deal they want to go back to?”

The official also scoffed at the equivalence Malley drew between Washington and Tehran.

“He’s acting like he’s from the UN, saying both sides have distrust of each other,” the source told the outlet.

On Friday, Blinken spoke with Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and the topic of Iran came up, though they did not discuss Malley’s remarks, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Blinken presented a gradual approach with Tehran that would lead to a “sharpened” nuclear deal, an official privy to the call told the paper, adding that opinions in the Biden administration are split.

Israelis’ impression from the top US diplomat is that the Biden administration “is not pinning its hopes” on the talks between the two sides in Vienna and is “not expecting a breakthrough” this week.

“They understand Iran is leaning toward refusing any new declarations or plans… Iran has a tough stance of returning to the JCPOA and removing all sanctions,” the official told the Jerusalem Post.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not spoken with anyone in the Biden administration since his call with the president in February, a source in his office told the paper.

In 2018, the Trump administration pulled out of the deal three years after it was brokered by the Obama administration. The accord reduced sanctions against Tehran in exchange for the country reducing its stockpile of enriched uranium needed to fuel nuclear weapons.