WarSclerotic

The question being asked before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travels to Moscow in two weeks to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, is whether Russia will help Israel increase the pressure on Iran.

Netanyahu is focusing his efforts on world powers involved in talks with Iran. The prime minister’s position is that sanctions on Iran should not be eased and that world powers should not settle for a partial agreement.

The Kremlin announced on Tuesday that Putin would host a meeting with Netanyahu on Nov. 20. A senior Israeli diplomatic official said that the main item on the agenda would be the talks with Iran. Netanyahu will demand that sanctions not be eased until a full agreement is reached with Iran.

During the same week as the meeting with Putin, Netanyahu will also meet with French President François Hollande in Jerusalem during a three-day trip to Israel by Hollande.

On Wednesday, Netanyahu discussed the Iranian nuclear issue during a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Jerusalem.

“As long as [the Iranians] continue their goal to enrich uranium to get nuclear weapons, the pressure should be maintained and even increased, because they’re increasing enrichment,” Netanyahu said. “And I believe it’s possible, with intense pressure, because of the sanctions regime led in large part by the United States, to get Iran to fully dismantle its nuclear weapons program. That’s really what we’re seeking — a full, peaceful, complete dismantling of Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities, an end of all enrichment, an end of all centrifuges, [and] an end of the plutonium reactor.”

“If this is achieved, I’d welcome it,” Netanyahu said. “I’d be very wary of any partial deals that enable Iran to maintain those capabilities but begin to reduce sanctions, because this could undermine the longevity and durability of the sanctions regime.”

Kerry said the goal of the U.S. and other world powers is “an Iran that has only a peaceful nuclear program.”

“We must make certain … that it is a peaceful program, that there is no capacity to produce a weapon of mass destruction,” Kerry said. “As I have said many times, no deal is better than a bad deal. We will not make a bad deal, if a deal can be made at all.”

On Thursday, another round of talks between world powers and Iran will be held in Geneva, Switzerland. Ahead of the new round of talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif returned to a familiar tactic — smiles and empty words.

Zarif expressed optimism on Tuesday, saying that a deal between Iran and the international community could be reached this week in Geneva.

“But I can only talk for our side, I cannot talk for the other side,” Zarif said.

The London Times reported on Tuesday that world powers may offer Iran a cash payment from its frozen oil revenues in return for a complete halt of all Iranian nuclear activities while negotiations continue.

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Tuesday said that IAEA chief Yukiya Amano is weighing a visit to Tehran in the near future. However, the IAEA spokeswoman stopped short of confirming Iranian reports that the trip was already set and would coincide with talks on IAEA efforts to probe suspicions that Iran worked on nuclear weapons.

In an email to The Associated Press, IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor said Amano had “been invited to visit Iran and this is being considered.”

She was responding to a report by Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency, which quoted the country’s nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, as saying that Amano would arrive Nov. 12. That is one day after an IAEA team is scheduled to begin talks with Iranian negotiators about the contours of the hoped-for IAEA investigation.