WarSclerotic

Home Front minister ‘astounded’ at Kerry | The Times of Israel.

Gilad Erdan says Netanyahu was right to criticize Iran agreement in the works, warns of possible nuclear arms race

By Stuart Winer November 14, 2013, 7:25 pm

Minister of Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan on July 8, 2013. (photo credit: Flash 90)

Home Front Defense Minister Gilad Erdan added his voice to the ongoing spat between Washington and Jerusalem, expressing displeasure on Thursday over recent comments by US Secretary of State John Kerry.

“I was astounded to hear John Kerry’s remarks” in which he criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for objecting to the nuclear agreement under negotiation in Geneva between Iran and the P5+1, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, Erdan said at a National Security Studies conference in Tel Aviv on Thursday. Kerry had criticized Netanyahu for rejecting the emerging deal before it was signed.

“I have not heard such a claim for many years,” said Erdan. “[Iran] is a country that wants to destroy Israel… What do they expect from an Israeli prime minister? Not to cry out when the knife is in the hand, but only when it is across our throat?”

Last week an alarmed Netanyahu vigorously protested against a deal with Iran, rumored to be in its closing stages, that would have reportedly fallen short of Israel’s demands for removing uranium enrichment facilities along with stockpiles of the material and dismantling a half-constructed heavy water plant that could produce plutonium for a bomb.

Although Iran didn’t accept the deal, on Sunday Kerry questioned whether the prime minister really knew what he was so furiously objecting to, a comment that raised tensions between Israel and the US.

Erdan speculated that even the Iranians were surprised at how easily they have been able negotiate the possible relaxing of sanctions, put in place by the West to squeeze Tehran into rolling back its nuclear program, which Western powers and the UN fear is intended to produce nuclear weapons.

“Iranian Foreign Minister [Mohammad Javad] Zarif and his cohorts are going around Geneva and it is impossible to wipe the smiles off their faces; even they cannot really believe the ease with which they have succeeded in wrecking the sanctions regime,” Erdan said. “It is only thanks to the discussion about the terms being discussed in Geneva, behind closed doors, that we have received an additional delay of several days and perhaps even an improvement in the terms of the agreement.”

The minister also warned that what is signed as an interim deal would likely remain unchanged in the long term, giving Iran the time and opportunity to go nuclear and destabilize the entire region.

“We must not be mistaken — an interim agreement will be a permanent agreement,” he said. “All those involved in the agreement must understand that the moment Iran becomes a nuclear threshold state an arms race will begin in the Middle East and regional uncertainty will increase.”

Meanwhile, US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki dismissed statements made by Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz that suggest the proposed changes in sanctions would benefit the Iranian economy by as much as $40 billion.

Details of the deal offered to Iran were never publicized, but Psaki told reporters that Steinitz’s estimate was “inaccurate, exaggerated and not based in reality.”

Another round of negotiations between Iran and world powers is scheduled for next week.

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