WarSclerotic

Yaalon: Easing Sanctions will Encourage Rouhani – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Defense Minister tells UN chief that easing the sanctions on Iran at this point in time would hurt the efforts to stop its nuclear program.

Yaalon meets UN Secretary General

Ariel Hermoni/Ministry of Defense

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon told United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday that easing the sanctions on Iran at this point in time would hurt the efforts to stop its nuclear program.

Yaalon, who is in the United States for a working visit, met with Ban at the UN headquarters in New York.

“We do not oppose a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear issue, but the goal should be clear: Iran must not have nuclear weapons,” Yaalon told Ban.

“We are witnesses to an offensive of smiles and charm by [Iranian president] Rouhani, initiated and orchestrated by [Supreme leader Ali] Khamenei. It will be impossible to achieve the goal if the sanctions are eased now,” he added.

Ya’alon added that easing the sanctions on the Islamic Republic now “will cause Rouhani to improve the economic situation on the one hand but not to stop the nuclear program on the other hand. The Iranians want to continue enrichment to ultimately produce a bomb. This is what we are warning against. The sanctions should continue until the Iranians understand that there is no way to avoid the decision to stop their pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

Since being elected in June, Rouhani has urged the world to seize the opportunity of his election to resolve the nuclear dispute. He has also said that Tehran would not give up “one iota” of its nuclear rights.

Israel has warned that Rouhani is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and would continue to enrich uranium while making moderate statements to the world.

During his meeting with Ban, Yaalon also referred to the efforts to rid Syria of its chemical weapons arsenal. On Sunday, experts destroyed missile warheads, aerial bombs and chemical mixing equipment on the first day of the campaign.

“We appreciate the UN’s operations in the region, particularly in Syria,” Yaalon told the UN chief, adding, “Assad realized that he needs to get rid of these weapons in order to survive, but we must wait for the results and make sure that he is not hiding some of the arsenal.”

Ya’alon, Hagel to discuss regional security in DC | The Times of Israel.

Meeting comes as some Israeli officials fear they cannot rely on the US to prevent Iran from going nuclear

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, left, points during a helicopter tour of the Golan Heights with US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, April 2013 (photo credit: Ariel Hermoni/Ministry of Defense/Flash90)

WASHINGTON — Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will meet in Washington to discuss “regional security challenges.”

The defense chiefs are scheduled to meet Tuesday at the Pentagon, according to a statement from Pentagon spokesman Carlin Woog to JTA.

Israel has welcomed the results of a threat by the Obama administration to strike Syria’s chemical weapons capability, spurring a decision by Syria to allow outside inspectors to destroy its chemical weapons.

Israel has made clear it wants President Obama to apply the same tactics — a credible military threat coupled with diplomacy — in negotiating an end to Iran’s suspected nuclear program.

Ya’alon met Monday with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York. The defense minister reportedly told the UN chief that easing sanctions on Iran would would hurt efforts to stop its nuclear program.

In Hassan Rouhani’s address to the UN on September 24, the Iranian president said his country “poses absolutely no threat to the world or the region,” and offered “to engage immediately in time-bound and result-oriented talks” over the nuclear program, “to build mutual confidence and removal of mutual uncertainties with full transparency.”

At the same time, he warned, “Nuclear knowledge in Iran has been domesticated now and the nuclear technology, inclusive of enrichment, has already reached industrial scale. It is, therefore, an illusion, and extremely unrealistic, to presume that the peaceful nature of the nuclear program of Iran could be ensured through impeding the program via illegitimate pressures.”

Israel has indicated since Rouhani’s New York “charm offensive” that it would act alone to prevent a nuclear Iran, with high level officials and top analysts acknowledging that Israel may no longer be able to rely on Obama administration promises regarding the Islamic Republic.

Iran insists on ‘absolute right’ to enrich uranium – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Despite scheduled resumption of nuclear talks, Iran insists on its complete right to enrich uranium on its land; ‘Iran will have to show the world it is peaceful,’ says Kerry

AFP

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif insisted on Monday that his country has the “absolute right” to enrich uranium on its soil, ISNA news agency reported.

“The mastery of civil nuclear technology, including the enrichment of uranium, on Iranian soil is the absolute right of Iran,” Zarif said at a meeting in Tehran with the visiting Swiss deputy foreign minister, Yves Rossier.

“The events of recent years have shown that the approach of threats and sanctions have not ensured the interests and objectives of the other party, and the continuation of this approach is the repetition of past mistakes which cannot prevent Iran from mastering civilian nuclear technology,” he added.

The West and Israel have long accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear bombs in the guise of a civilian program, charges Tehran has vehemently denied.

Iran and six world powers – Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, the United States – are set to resume negotiations in Geneva on October 15 to try to find a solution to the nuclear issue.

These would be the first talks between Iran and the six since the election in June of moderate President Hassan Rohani, who has called for a speedy settlement of an issue that has been stalled for eight years.

At meetings in Almaty this year, the six proposed Iran suspend uranium enrichment at the 20% level it says it needs for a medical research reactor, and to halt enrichment at its underground plant at Fordo.

In return, they would ease some sanctions on trade in gold and petrochemicals.

However, Zarif said on Sunday the offers were now “history” and that the group “should come to the negotiating table with a new approach”.

US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday urged Iran to come up with new proposals.

“The group of six put a proposal on the table at Almaty and I don’t believe as of yet Iran has fully responded to that particular proposal. So I think we are waiting for the fullness of the Iranian difference in their approach now,” Kerry told reporters in Indonesia after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

“So what we need are a set of proposals from Iran that will fully disclose how they will show the world that their program is peaceful,” he added.