A senior figure in the Iranian regime has denied claims by Western sources that the regime has changed direction on Israel, declaring that Iran will never consent to "the occupation and dispossession by the Zionist regime", Channel 2 television reports. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues diplomatic efforts to scuttle the nuclear agreement signed by the five powers plus the European Union with Iran, but has said that Israel does not object to an Iranian nuclear program, as long as it is for civilian purposes only.
British Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond said last week that Iran had presented a more flexible stance on the confrontation with Israel. Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser on international affairs to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, talked tough in a meeting yesterday with religious leaders from Pakistan, and contradicted Hammond's statement. "We will never recognize Israel," he said.
"They occupy and dispossess, and we will not become resigned to this situation, contrary to what people say," Velayati stressed. He said Western attempts to make Muslim countries recognize Israel had failed. "That is good, because the Palestinian people must continue to fight until the territories are reconquered," he said.
Last week, after Hammond's visit to Teheran, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared that Israel "has no place in diplomatic talks with Britain; there are no talks with the Zionist regime." A senior member of the Iranian parliament said that "Israel must be annihilated that is our constant slogan."
Netanyahu, on a visit to Italy, commented on Israel's stance towards Iran at a joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. "The barbarism of the Islamic state organization ISIS is what has held the world's attention, and rightly so. But I believe that the threat from another Islamic state, the Islamic state of Iran, is far worse, particularly its striving for nuclear weapons."
Netanyahu emphasized that Israel did not object to a civilian nuclear program in Iran. "We oppose a military nuclear program in Iran. Regrettably, the deal with Iran allows it to keep and expand a formidable nuclear infrastructure that is completely unnecessary for civilian nuclear purposes, but is entirely necessary for the production of nuclear weapons.”
The prime minister warned: "The deal will allow the Iranians within 13 years to maintain as many centrifuges as they want and to enrich as much uranium as they want to any level they want. That will bring the Islamic state of Iran which practices terrorism worldwide to the threshold of an entire nuclear arsenal."
Meanwhile, US President Obama, speaking to American Jewish organizations by webcast, said last week that the agreement with Iran "blocks every way, every pathway that Iran might take in order to obtain a nuclear weapon.” He stressed that US support for Israel was "sacrosanct" and "non-partisan", and criticized the virulence of attacks that had been made on Democratic members of Congress who had come out in favor of the agreement.
Obama expressed the hope that relations between the US and Israel would get back to normal once the agreement was ratified. "As soon as this part of the debate is over, my hope is that the Israeli government will immediately want to rejoin conversations we started long before on how we can enhance Israeli security in a very troubled neighborhood,” he said, citing measures he had taken in the past to bolster military aid to Israel, such as support for Israel's Iron Dome rocket defense system.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 30, 2015
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2015
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 30, 2015
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2015