Ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's with US President Barack Obama, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that a deal between the US and Tehran could dramatically improve the relationship between the two countries within six months. Commentators in the US said yesterday that such a development was Netanyahu's "nightmare".
Netanyahu landed in New York on Sunday and will arrive in Washington at 5 pm today. His meeting with Obama in the White House will begin at 6:15 pm, and will last for two hours. Netanyahu will later hold separate meetings with Vice President Joe Biden (who shortly beforehand will speak at the J Street Conference) and Kerry. Afterwards, Netanyahu will participate in the farewell event for outgoing Israeli Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, at Capitol Hill.
In an interview on Sunday with CBS's "60 Minutes", Kerry said that although President Obama welcomed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's gesture, "words are not going to replace actions. What we need are actions that prove that we and our allies, our friends in the region, can never be threatened by this program.
"The United States is not going to lift the sanctions until it is clear that a very verifiable, accountable, transparent process is in place, whereby we know exactly what Iran is going to be doing with its program," he said.
Kerry said that Iran could prove its sincerity by immediately opening its nuclear facilities to inspections and keeping its uranium enrichment efforts at lower grades that were not suitable for military use.
Asked whether it was possible to close a deal within three to six months, as Rouhani suggested, Kerry said, "It's possible to have a deal sooner than that depending on how forthcoming and clear Iran is prepared to be." He added, "If it is a peaceful program, and we can all see that - the whole world sees that - the relationship with Iran can change dramatically for the better and it can change fast."
US commentators said on Sunday that as far as Netanyahu was concerned, such a mood was nothing less than a nightmare. Israeli sources said that, in his talk with Obama, Netanyahu will say that a US decision to lift sanctions on Iran, or even just to ease them, would be a strategic mistake. Netanyahu will say that Iran's campaign of smiles in the US was intended to camouflage the acceleration of its preparations to develop a nuclear weapon. The prime minister intends to back his words with intelligence.
On Saturday, a top US official said in a briefing that Obama's response will be that Israel has every right to be skeptical and that the US shares this skepticism. Obama will tell Netanyahu that the administration intends to take every measure necessary to prevent fraud.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 30, 2013
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