WarSclerotic

Israel Hayom | The West’s embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Dore Gold

Syrian diplomat reportedly passing military intel to Israel and US | The Times of Israel.

Serving envoy, trusted by Damascus, has detailed how Iran arms Hezbollah via Syria, according to TV report

A MiG-21 similar to the plane reported missing during a training mission over Syria. (photo credit/CC-BY Armchair Aviator, Flickr)

Iran Nuclear Facilities ‘Under Massive Cyber Attack’TechWeekEurope UK.

Iran claims it is facing another major attack from the US and Israel

Iran believes its nuclear facilities have been hit with a “massive cyber attack” again, claiming the UK, US and Israel were behind it, according to a Reuters report.

Iran’s intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi said adequate security procedures were in place, however.

The country’s officials met with world powers in Moscow on Tuesday to discuss the Iranian nuclear programme, but failed to come up with an agreement other than to set up a technical follow-up meeting in Istanbul on 3 July.

US and Israel again?

“Based on obtained information, America and the Zionist regime (Israel) along with the MI6 planned an operation to launch a massive cyber attack against Iran’s facilities following the meeting between Iran and the P5+1 in Moscow,” Iran’s English-language Press TV quoted Heydar Moslehi as saying.

“They still seek to carry out the plan, but we have taken necessary measures.”

America and Israel have already been confirmed as the creators of Stuxnet, which broke numerous Iranian centrifuges by forcing them to overspeed in 2010, causing disruption to nuclear processes.

It is believed the two nations are behind the Flame worm as well. Earlier this week, officials with knowledge of the matter told the Washington Post the National Security Agency, the CIA and Israel’s military were all involved in the operation of the malware.

According to a recently released book, an excerpt of which was recently published in the New York Times, the US and Israel have been cooperating on a cyber-attack initiative called ‘Olympic Games’, which was started in the Bush era but continued and strengthened under Barack Obama.

It is believed the Olympic Games push was designed to disrupt Iranian nuclear capabilities, which is what Stuxnet achieved. President Obama has ordered sustained cyber attacks on Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities as part of the strategy.

Russian security firm Kaspersky also believes the operators of Flame and Stuxnet cooperated at least once. If the US government was behind Flame, it would mean the nation would be guilty of bypassing security of one of its biggest companies – Microsoft.

Flame’s operators created fake Microsoft certificates to dupe users into downloading malicious software, which then helped the worm propagate.

Iran Central Bank Website Hacked.

Iranian media report that the website of Iran’s Central Bank has been the target of a cyber-attack that’s thrown all of its systems offline.

ILNA reported on Tuesday morning that the Central Bank website is currently inaccessible and, according to experts, all signs point to a cyber-attack on the Central Bank website.

So far, the bank has not officially confirmed the attack, but last week the head of Iran’s Central Bank, Mahmoud Bahmani, reported that in just one day, the bank’s site was targeted by about 250,000 attempted cyber-attacks.

In recent months, Iranian government websites have been affected by extensive cyber-attacks. In April, the Ministry of Oil’s computer systems were the target of an attack by the computer malware Viper. The ministry stressed that none of its sensitive data was compromised in the attack.

ILNA’s report says there is now great concern for the security of financial data at the country’s banking and monetary policy-making institutions.

Flame and Sutxnet are two other computer viruses that have affected Iranian computer systems in recent years. Unconfirmed reports indicate that the United States and Israel have been collaborating on malware specifically to target Iranian systems and hamper the country’s nuclear activities.

Hanegbi: U.S. Wasting Time Talking with Iran – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Tzachi Hanegbi

Flash 90

Former Kadima MK Tzahi Hanegbi criticized this week the United States and its conduct during the negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program.

Hanegbi, formerly the chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, spoke at a meeting of the Professors for a Strong Israel organization, and accused the United States of taking part in meetings aimed at wasting time and creating a false impression. A recording of the meeting was received by one of the writers of the Makor Rishon newspaper.

“It so happens that today the third meeting, probably the last in a series of three comic encounters, is taking place,” Hanegbi said of the talks between the six world powers and Iran in Moscow. “The first was in Istanbul, the second was in Baghdad, the third in Moscow, and the intention here is to deceive Israel. This is the purpose of the meetings. The Americans are aware of the fact that nothing will come out of these talks, but they need to earn that time, to show a façade of discourse.”

Hanegbi also referred to Iran’s conduct, saying, “The Iranians are playing the game, as usual, using their seasoned sophistication, and time goes by. We are approaching the decisive moment. Eventually the diplomatic effort will be over, I believe, with a very slim chance that Iran will announce that it is accepting the Security Council resolutions.”

He claimed that most European leaders, and some American leaders, have decided to accept the possibility that Iran will have nuclear weapons.

“I think that many in Europe, almost all European leaders, as well as a significant number of U.S. leaders, have already mentally accepted a nuclear Iran,” said Hanegbi. “There are many excuses. Anyone who follows can read articles by some very prestigious research institutes in the United States which preach for this reconciliation, because it actually a recycling of the successful example of the Cold War.”

Hanegbi expressed hope that if all else fails Israel will take matters into its own hands and launch an attack on Iran.

“What we see as pure Western common sense, which is only considerations of cost vs. benefit, could be a different common sense where the Iranian leadership is concerned,” he said. “Even if there is not a high chance that [Iran using nuclear weapons on Israel] this would happen, the risk is too high. And that’s why on this issue I can only hope that, if all the optimistic scenarios one after another are unsuccessful, the State of Israel will take its fate into its own hands.”

Flame computer virus designed to sabotage Iran’s computers, expert says – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

Top official at Symantec Corp says company identifies a component of Flame that allows operators to delete files from computers; Iran: Israel, U.S. intensifying cyber warfare attempts.

By Oded Yaron and Reuters | Jun.22, 2012 | 9:43 AM | 6

Computer server room. Photo by AP

Reuters

By Oded Yaron and Haaretz

Jun.22,2012 | 9:43 AM | 1

The Flame computer virus is not only capable of espionage but it can also sabotage computer systems and likely was used to attack Iran in April, according to a leading security company, Symantec Corp.

Iran had previously blamed Flame for causing data loss on computers in the country’s main oil export terminal and Oil Ministry. But prior to Symantec’s discovery, cyber experts had only unearthed evidence that proved the mysterious virus was capable of espionage.

Symantec researcher Vikram Thakur said on Thursday that the company has now identified a component of Flame that allows operators to delete files from computers.

”These guys have the capability to delete everything on the computer,” Thakur said. ”This is not something that is theoretical. It is absolutely there.”

Iran complained about the threat of cyber attacks again on Thursday, saying it had detected plans by the United States, Israel and Britain to launch a ”massive” strike after the breakdown of talks over Tehran’s nuclear activities.

Thakur’s comments came after, on Thursday, Iran’s intelligence minister accused the United States, Israel, and Britain of planning to launch a cyber attack against Iran following the latest round of nuclear talks in Moscow.

Speaking to the Iranian state run television network Press TV, Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi said: “Based on obtained information, the U.S. and the Zionist regime along with the MI6 planned an operation to launch a massive cyber attack against Iran’s facilities following the meeting between Iran and the P5+1 in Moscow.”

According to Moslehi, the alleged attempt to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities failed over Iranian measures, adding: “They still seek to carry out the plan, but we have taken necessary measures.”

The top Iranian official’s comments came after, earlier this week, Moscow hosted the latest round of P5+1 nuclear talks, which ended in the apparent breakdown of talks.

DEBKA.

Saeed Jalili and Catherine Ashton

Having run out of fallback positions from failed diplomacy, some Western powers are clinging to the prospect of tough sanctions going into effect on July 1 for bringing Iran to heel. However, sanctions have as little chance of working as direct negotiations.
It must now be obvious even to the most fervent pro-diplomacy, anti-war optimists that the nuclear negotiating track between the six world powers (the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany) and Iran has run its course. And Tehran is too far advanced towards its goal of a nuclear weapon to be diverted by any new sanctions, however painful.
The Moscow talks took place on June 18-19 notwithstanding all the negative landmarks along the way. The next meeting on July 3 in Istanbul is sharply demoted to technicians, as the coordinator of the talks, the European Union’s Foreign Policy Coordinator Catherine Ashton had to admit, confirming that senior negotiators had nothing left to discuss with Tehran.
Iran’s Saeed Jalili was on the offensive from the start of the process. He demanded recognition of Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium and the lifting of sanctions in return for Iranian cooperation with the International Atomic Agency in Vienna.

Iran has lost its fear of a military strike

In Moscow, his delegation kept on changing the subject to divert attention from its controversial nuclear projects. The meeting, said the Iranians, had better focus on the world campaign against narcotics and such regional issues such as Syria and Bahrain. When pinned down, they flatly rejected the P5+1 group’s demand to halt production of 20 percent enriched uranium, shut the Fordo underground advanced enrichment facility down or transfer highly-enriched uranium out of the country.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s call for Iran to come to the Moscow talks with “concrete steps” for halting 20 percent uranium enrichment was simply ignored.
Indeed, Iranian officials flatly refused for the first time to remove a single gram of enriched uranium out of the country. They also rejected a Western proposal to receive in return for exported enriched uranium nuclear plates, from which it is hard to produce fissile material for bomb-making.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources add that the day after the Moscow session fizzled, it was discovered that the Iranian delegation had arrived with the sole intention of derailing it.
This guideline was grounded in the conclusion reached by their leaders in Tehran that the danger of President Barack Obama ordering a military attack before the US presidential election in November had dropped to nil. Iran had therefore won another six months free and clear to enrich as much uranium as it wanted and press forward undisturbed with its planned nuclear weapons program.

Solo Chinese performance

Intelligence experts were taken aback by the surprise appearance at the Moscow talks of China’s Assistant Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu as delegation head. Seemingly by prior arrangement with Moscow and Tehran, Ma took up much of the deliberations with a long rant against Ashton who sat at the head of the table. The Russian delegate made a show of trying to quiet him down by mediating between him and Ashton – without success.
The Chinese official had apparently staged a filibuster coordinated with Moscow to throw the talks off track.
(See the article in this issue on Vladimir Putin’s talks in Beijing.)
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources sum up the situation at Iran’s nuclear program:
The production of uranium enriched to 20 percent refinement has never stopped for a moment.
Some 10,000 centrifuges spinning at Natanz and Fordo are producing a whopping eight kilograms of enriched uranium a day. Enough has been accumulated for five nuclear bombs.
Unless stopped, Iran will by December have enough enriched uranium for seven or eight nuclear bombs – even without taking into account a clandestine weapons track never exposed to IAEA inspection, which the Obama administration has been keeping quiet so as not to sabotage the dialogue with Iran.
In two or three months, Tehran would therefore be able to enrich uranium up to 90 percent or weapons grade. Even without assembling a nuclear bomb or warhead, Iran would have several radioactive bombs ready for operation by the end of 2012.

An Iranian agent is snapping up plutonium

And that is not all, according to information, which Saudi intelligence chose to leak on the day nuclear negotiations resumed in Moscow:
In the last few months the “Commonwealth of Independent States” – including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine – managed to secretly contact an Iranian agent with the purpose of selling plutonium at the price of $2 million per kilogram. Iran requires only 6 kilograms of plutonium for a nuclear weapon although a nuclear expert claimed that a nuclear bomb could be manufactured with even less. This Iranian expert is well known in the arena of nuclear proliferation and he has close connections all across Eastern Europe, Russia and Turkey.
According to the Saudi source, samples were recently sent to Iran for testing.
This means one thing: An Iranian agent managed to acquire military-grade plutonium and must be presumed to have put it in the hands of Iranian officials. Tehran is therefore running a clandestine alternative nuclear program, never raised by the West at the various nuclear forums including IAEA board meetings in Vienna, for shortening the road to a plutonium-fueled nuclear weapon.
Tehran can well afford to pay $12 million for the six kilograms needed to build a nuclear weapon.

Military force in Syria would be a preliminary to action against Iran

Iran’s hell-bent progress towards attaining a nuclear weapon while pretending to negotiate with the world powers poses some hard questions for President Obama and Israel’s leaders.
What has become of the solemn vows that Washington would not again fall into the trap of talks with Iran to no purpose? What of the assurance that the US would not engage in talks for the sake of talks?
And what happened to the argument heard from Israeli leaders at the beginning of this year that the window of opportunity for destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities by military action was closing fast and “immunity zones” would very soon place its nuclear facilities out of reach?
Tuesday, June 19, Dennis Ross, who briefly served as President Obama’s adviser on Iran, said: “This approach to diplomacy is not open-ended; at some point we (the US) will call a halt to it. They [should] understand that if [they] adopt a posture where they just keep talking and there are no results, that sooner or later that is not going to be the case. And when it is not the case they are subjecting themselves to other means, including the use of force.”
But the decision to use military force against Iran rests with one man, Barack Obama. As long as he refuses to show a green light – even for limited military action Syria – this decision is not anticipated, although US forces already in the Gulf are extensive enough and sufficiently prepared for this mission.
A decision by the president to intervene directly against the violence in Syria would open the door for a military operation in Iran as well.

DEBKA.

Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama

In just under a year ago, during the five weeks between late July and late August 2011, Russia’s prime minister and future president Vladimir Putin came to a decision with critical repercussions for present-day events: He decided Russia must part ways with US policy initiatives in the Arab world and forge a path diametrically opposed to US President Barack Obama his transformational objectives for the Arab Revolt and his policy on a nuclear Iran.
The upshot is visible today in Moscow’s steps to stand in the way of all Obama’s plans for the Middle East.
Most of all, Putin’s thinking is dominated by the angry sense that the Obama administration conned Russia on Libya and must not be allowed to repeat the exercise in Syria.
“The fate of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria should be left to the hands of the Syrians,” he told a press conference Wednesday, June 20 at the close of the G20 summit in Mexico. To drive his point home, he stressed, “No one country has the right to tell another people whom their leader should be.”
In his view, the United States violated one UN Security Council resolution on Libya after another by leading NATO’s air blitz on Muammar Qaddafi’s regime centers “from behind” and allowing European and Arab special forces troops to oust the Libyan ruler and hasten his death.
It is Putin’s recollection that Washington gained Russian support at the UN Security Council for the Libya expedition by promising to stay within its mandate, which was to protect civilians. Moscow took umbrage when US emissaries failed to turn up with rebel leaders to meet Russian diplomats accompanied by Libyan regime officials for three scheduled meetings at Tunisian hotels from mid-July throughout August, 2011.
They were to have signed a ceasefire in the fighting and drawn up a plan for easing Qaddafi out of power, though not members of his family.

Putin widens his rift with Obama at the Los Cabos and Moscow parleys

Later, the Russians discovered that the US had preferred to focus on setting up the decisive assault on Tripoli for toppling the Qaddafi regime. That offensive was launched Saturday, Aug. 20, 2011.
The Libyan episode partly accounts for three decisions from which Putin has not budged to this day, say DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources in Moscow:
1. To abstain from partnering any US diplomatic steps in the Middle East:
2. To prevent Washington repeating its Libyan exercise by achieving Assad’s overthrow;
3. To place every possible obstacle in the way of a US attack on Iran’s nuclear program or attempt at regime change in Tehran.
With these objectives firmly in mind, he marshaled big guns for two rounds of diplomacy this week: the G20 summit of industrialized nations at Los Cabos, Mexico and the third round of nuclear crisis talks between the six world powers (US, Russia, the UK, France, China and Germany) and Iran in Moscow.
In Mexico, Western “sources” wove back and forth to cobble together a united front against the Assad regime. Finally, President Obama had to admit Wednesday morning that China and Russia are “not aligned” with the US and other nations on Syria, “but both countries’ leaders recognize the dangers of a civil war.”
Countering Putin’s demand to leave Assad’s fate to the Syrian people, the US President remarked:
“I don’t see a scenario in which Assad stays and violence is reduced.”
The results of the exchanges at Los Cabos were, as Putin intended: a widened gap between Washington and Moscow; a stalemate on Syria which left Assad in place in Damascus; and Obama stuck with them both for as long as he adheres to his current course of action.

Wooing the Chinese leader and Iranian negotiator

The Russian president’s advance preparations for his rendezvous with Obama in Mexico, as revealed here by our Moscow sources, were exhaustive – though hardly conducive to an amicable encounter:
One: From June 6, he spent two days in Beijing working with President Hu Jintao to synchronize their positions on Syria and Iran. Senior Russian and Chinese military and intelligence officers were roped in for their input.
Two: Two days earlier, Russia added the new design 11661 missile ship Dagestan to its Caspian Fleet.
It was described to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources as, “the most powerful of our naval forces on the Caspian Sea and the first in the Russian Navy to be armed with the latest universal missile complex Kalibr-NK, able to deliver high precision missiles to surface and sea targets. Its eight missiles have a range of 300 kilometers.”
Those sources were also informed that any Russian warship in the Caspian is there “either against Iran or in connection with Iran.” Above all, the Caspian fleet is there to protect the Russian border in case a sudden attack on Iran brings Western troops to the region.
Three: Saeed Jalili, Iran’s senior nuclear negotiator and head of its National Security Council, was invited by the Russian president for a long stay. From June 11, he was Putin’s honored guest in Moscow and, over the weekend, was invited to stay in St. Petersburg, where he was introduced to the president’s inner circle of friends, cronies from Putin’s days in the KGB known as the “Peter Group.”

A proactive Russian military posture to block intervention in Syria

Never in the history of Revolutionary Islamic Iran’s foreign relations has any of its officials been so honored by any world leader, east or west. By this gesture, Putin sought to win the trust of Iran’s leaders. It was meant as a symbol to show that the Russian leader’s personal pledges to Tehran were equal to the promises he made to his closest friends.
It goes without saying that Jalili’s stay in Russia was well spent on bringing the positions of Moscow and Tehran into close alignment – both on the nuclear and the Syrian issues.
Four: So by the time the nuclear talks between the six powers and Iran opened on Monday, June 18, in Moscow, the Russian and Chinese negotiators were primed to side with Jalili against the US and the West on the core issues. All that meeting achieved was another two-week postponement for the negotiations to be continued on July 3 in Istanbul by low-ranking officials.
To get anywhere at that meeting too, the Obama administration will have to get back to Moscow and Beijing and tie up some very loose ends.
Five: Russian military sources this past week showered the media with data attesting to hyperactive Russian military movements in the Middle East: Russian warships were said to be heading to Moscow’s Syrian base at Tartus, including an elite marine unit. Western defense sources read these reports, unfounded or not, as a powerful Russian signal of zero tolerance for foreign military intervention in Syria.
Monday night, June 18, the semi-official Iranian news agency Fars reported the armies of Russia, China, Iran and Syria were to stage in Syria “the biggest military exercise of its kind in Middle East history.” It would include land, air and naval units and involve 90,000 combat soldiers, 400 planes and 900 tanks.
China was said to have applied for permission to send 12 warships to Tartus through the Suez Canal in the second half of June.

Putin has big plans for his new front

The next day, June 19, Russian and Chinese sources denied the Iranian report as false. But by then it had had its desired effect of providing an ominous backdrop for the Obama-Putin interview on Iran and Syria on the last day of the G20 summit. The impression conveyed to the world was that Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and Damascus were ranged in a powerful front to defend their common interests and nobble any US attempts at intervention or military action against Bashar Assad.
It is plain by now, according to our Moscow sources, that the Russian-Chinese front is not confined just to buttressing Iran and Syria; it has more and bigger Middle East fish to fry.
Beijing, for instance, must decide whether it suits its book to meet Saudi Arabia’s request for nuclear-capable ballistic missiles and so accelerate a wild Middle East nuclear race that a nuclear Iran is bound to touch off. (See the opening item of DEBKA-Net-Weekly 545 from June 15 – Riyadh to Beijing: We’ll Pay for Nuclear-Capable Ballistic Missiles with All the Oil You Need).
According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources in Moscow, Putin’s impetus was initially driven in the latter half of 2011 by a compelling ambition to stall America’s thrust into the Arab world on the wings of the “Arab Spring.” His appetite and horizon have since expanded. Early this year, he launched a comprehensive scheme for dislodging the US from the positions it gained in Arab lands in the last quarter of the twentieth century by pushing Russia out.

Syria grounds fighter-bomber fleet for fear of more defections.

DEBKAfile Special Report June 21, 2012, 11:41 PM (GMT+02:00)

Syrian Air Force Mig-21

Syrian President Bashar Assad Thursday night, June 21, ordered his entire Air Force fleet of fighter bombers grounded, for fear that more pilots might defect after Col. Hasan Merhi al-Hamadeh flew to Jordan aboard a MiG-21.

Officials in Damascus noted that the same day was chosen by Washington to confirm that CIA officers were present in southern Turkey to help the Free Syrian Army rebels fight the Syrian government. Syrian officials are convinced that the defection of the pilot with his plane was organized by the Americans and that more are in the pipeline in an attempt to show the Syrian people and Arab world that even the Syrian air force, the part of the armed forces most loyal to Assad, was in fact slipping out of his hands.
debkafile’s military and intelligence sources report that, early Thursday, Col, al-Hamadeh flew out of the Khalkhala air base, which is situated between the southern towns of Deraa and Suweida not far from the Druze Mountain.
While his MiG belonged to the 73^rd Air Brigade, he was a member of the Syrian Air Force’s 20^th Division and commander of the MiG-21 test squadron, which regularly inspects those aircraft at southern air bases to check if they are flight worthy.
That is why no one at the Khalkhala base saw anything amiss when this officer climbed aboard one of the aircraft and suddenly pivoted the plane at a sharp angle – even when he failed to respond to control tower signals. B

But before they could catch on, the MiG-21 was gone over the border to Jordan, a flight of no more than 90 seconds.
Because the Jordanians were not forewarned about an incoming Syrian air force plane, Col. Al-Hamadeh requested permission from the control tower at Al Hussein air base in northern Jordan to make an emergency landing. As soon as the MiG came to a stop on the runway, the Syrian colonel jumped out, shed is uniform and prayed.
Our sources disclose that the defector came from the village of Meles in the Idlib district of northern Syria where he has left his wife, four children and family. This village is one of the few parts of the embattled district to remain in Free Syrian Army rebel hands. Their agents were certainly involved in helping to arrange his escape.

Israel won’t attack Iran while West pursues current diplomatic effort, official tells Times of Israel | The Times of Israel.

There will be two more rounds and ‘of course we have to wait,’ official says, in departure from familiar Israeli assertion that military option is ‘on the table’

EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton, left, chats with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili during May talks in Baghdad (photo credit: Hadi Mizban/AP)

Jerusalem will not launch a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities so long as the West is pursuing its current diplomatic effort at thwarting the Iranian program, a well-placed Israeli official told The Times of Israel on Thursday.

“Of course we are going to wait, what else can we do?” the official, who asked to remain anonymous, said. To attack before the current diplomatic avenue of engagement was exhausted was unthinkable, he said.

The comments seemed to mark a significant departure from Israel’s previous position, which has been to state that the military option is “on the table.”

Furthermore, the official added, that diplomatic route — the nuclear talks between six Western powers and Iran — is going to extend for two more rounds, which have yet to be so much as scheduled.

The third round of talks between the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany, the so-called P5+1, held in Moscow this week, ended without tangible results. But since the West has not abandoned the diplomatic option, Jerusalem has no choice but to wait for the next rounds, the Israeli official said.

“In the beginning, the Western powers announced there will be five rounds of nuclear talks with Iran. At that point already it was clear that if Tehran has anything to offer, we would only find out during the fifth round,” the official told The Times of Israel. “The first rounds are only tactical play: posturing, maneuvering and outmaneuvering each other, and all for the purpose to get to the final line in a better position. Only at the very end will the Iranians show us their cards — whether they have something to offer that’s acceptable or whether they just wanted to buy time.”

The Moscow talks actually ended at a lower point than previous rounds, in Istanbul and Baghdad. Those talks broke up with commitments to continue the talks at different venues, but this week the two sides only agreed to engage in low level talks in July.

This engagement includes an “early follow-on technical-level meeting” on July 3 in Istanbul, followed by “contact at the deputy-level” between Western and Iranian negotiators, according to European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who heads the P5+1 delegation. “I will then be directly in touch with [Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Saeed] Jalili about prospects for a future meeting at the political level,” she said.

As of Thursday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had not directly commented on the breakdown of the Moscow talks. He only addressed the Iranian nuclear threat in general terms at the closing plenary of the Presidential Conference in Jerusalem on Thursday evening, saying humanity needs to stop Iran and other dictatorial regimes from attaining weapons of mass destruction.

“There is a concentration of effort to produce the weapons of mass death. This is a central challenge of our time,” he said in a recorded video message to be screened at the conference. Netanyahu said he was unable to attend in person due to a foot injury. “The central challenge of our time is to continue the proliferation of freedom and to stop the proliferation of these deadly weapons,” he said.

The world’s major powers should unite “to secure the presence and embrace the future,” Netanyahu continued. “I’m very confident about the long term but I know that we must prevent, in the short term, radical forces from bringing us down, bringing millions of people down, before they themselves are brought down. That paradox is not something beyond our powers. Free societies and the Jewish people have overcome tremendous challenges and I think if we focus on these twin tasks then I think we will achieve this as well.”

Regarding the government’s stance on the diplomatic efforts to get Iran to abandon its nuclear program, Jerusalem has until now seen “no evidence whatsoever” that the Iranians seriously consider in any way to halt their nuclear weapons program, the official told The Times of Israel. The prime minister believes the Iranian strategy is to play for time, “to keep on talking and talking and in parallel continue enriching uranium,” the official said.

Israel wants the international community to send an “unequivocal message” to Iran: “their enrichment program, of high-level uranium and of low-level uranium, must totally stop — or else the international community will take efficient steps to stop it themselves,” he said.

The West is only going to learn about Tehran’s real intentions after the fifth round of senior-level talks, the official reiterated. “That’s how negotiations are being conducted everywhere in the world, and that’s certainly how you bargain in the Middle East.”