WarSclerotic

France says Iran comments on Israel complicate nuke talks | The Times of Israel.

Ayatollah calls Israel ‘rabid dog,’ drawing harsh response from Paris as new round of negotiations begin

By AP and Times of Israel staff November 20, 2013, 2:24 pm

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves to the crowd after speaking in Tehran earlier this year. (photo credit: AP/Office of the Supreme Leader)

PARIS — The French government spokeswoman says President Francois Hollande believes comments by Iran’s supreme leader about Israel are “unacceptable” and complicate talks between world powers and the Islamic regime over its nuclear program.

French government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem told reporters that Hollande’s cabinet discussed the Iran nuclear dossier just hours before negotiations between Iran and six world powers were set to resume in Geneva.

She said, however, that France still hopes for a deal and its position has not changed in the talks.

Hollande was referring to comments attributed earlier to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaking to a gathering of the Basij force, which is controlled by Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard.

In them, the Iranian leader referred to Israel — “the Zionist regime” — as “the rabid dog of the region.”

Speaking to some 50,000 members of the paramilitary volunteer militia, Khamenei also said Israel was ripe for collapse.

“The (Israeli) Zionist regime is a regime whose pillars are extremely shaky and is doomed to collapse,” he said, according to French news agency AFP. “Any phenomenon that is created by force cannot endure.”

On eve on nuclear talks, Khamenei says Israel ‘doomed to extinction’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

As Netanyahu takes off for last ditch effort to block nuclear deal with Iran, Khamenei claims Iran will never give up nuclear rights, blames France for ‘kneeling before Israel’, levels indirect threat to ‘slap aggressors in face’

News agencies

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took off on Thursday for Russia in a last-minute bid to sway an emerging deal with Iran over its contested nuclear program.

Meanwhile, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tehran wanted friendly ties with all countries, including the United States but said that Israel is “doomed to extinction.”

“The Zionist regime is a regime whose pillars are extremely shaky and is doomed to extinction,” Khamenei told commanders of the hardline Basij militia force in Tehran.

“Any phenomenon that is created by force cannot endure,” he said in comments broadcast live on state television. “The enemies of Iran sometimes and particularly the rabid dog of the region – the Zionist regime – malevolently claim that Iran is a threat to the entire world,” Khamenei said.

Netanyahu is to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on Wednesday evening to voice his concerns about the deal being hammered out at talks in Geneva.On Thursday, he will address members of the Russian Jewish community.

Nuclear talks (Photo: Reuters)

Before an audience of militiamen, Khamenei said he would not allow any “retreat” on its rights: “I insist on stabilizing the rights of the Iranian nation, including the nuclear rights,” Khamenei told the militiamen of the Basij force in Tehran, in remarks broadcast live on state television.

“I insist on not retreating one step from the rights of the Iranian nation,” he said, adding that “We (Iran) want to have friendly relations with all nations, even the United States. We are not hostile to the American nation. They are like other nations in the world,” he said.

Khamenei took special effort to slam France, which took a hardliner position regarding the deal with Iran, saying French officials were “not only succumbing to the United States, but they are kneeling before the Israeli regime” and said Iran would “slap aggressors in the face in such a way they will never forget it” without mentioning any specific country.

In response, the militiamen chanted “Death to America.”

Iranian President Hassan Rohani made similar claims in phone call to Britan’s Prime Minister David Camron: “As Iran is determined that its nuclear activities will remain peaceful, it will strongly defend its nuclear rights,” the official IRNA news agency reported Rohani as telling Cameron.

“We will accept no discrimination on this issue. The language of respect must replace that of threats and sanctions,” he added.

Israel is staunchly opposed to the mooted interim agreement, insisting it will give Iran vital sanctions relief while failing to halt Tehran’s alleged march towards a “breakout” nuclear weapons capability.

Russian stance

The P5+1 – of which Russia is a member alongside the United States, China, France, Britain and Germany – will reconvene with Iran on Wednesday in Geneva for talks on the program.

“We hope the efforts that are being made will be crowned with success at the meeting that opens today in Geneva,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a joint news conference after talks with Brazilian Foreign Minister Luiz Alberto Figueiredo.

Lavrov said in remarks broadcast on Saturday that chances of reaching an agreement were very good and the opportunity should not be passed up.

He has also suggested Iran is prepared to produce less enriched uranium and halt production of uranium enriched to a fissile concentration of 20 percent, a relatively short step from weapons-grade material. Those are two of the steps Western powers want Iran to take.

Russia, which built Iran’s first nuclear power plant and has much warmer ties with Tehran than the United States does, has expressed less suspicion than Western powers that Iran may be seeking to develop nuclear weapons capability. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

The last round of talks with Iran that ended on November 10 came tantalizingly close to a framework agreement that supporters say would bolster Iran’s new president, a reputed moderate, and buy time for negotiating a comprehensive deal.

Moscow has expressed hope the differences could be ironed out, with Putin telling his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rohani on Monday that “a real chance has now emerged for finding a solution to this longstanding problem.”

Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Zeev Elkin, said his country did not expect a radical change in Moscow’s stance.

“Russia is not about to espouse the Israeli position,” he told public radio ahead of taking off to Russia with Netanyahu. “But any small budge could influence the whole process.”

Iranian news agency IRNA said Rohani also held talks on the telephone with Chinese President Xi Jinping, telling him Tehran was seeking “an accord which preserves its rights and shows that the Iranian nuclear program is totally peaceful.”

He called for China to oppose “excessive demands of certain countries,” referring to France which took a tough stand at the last round of talks in Geneva at the start of November.

Parliament speaker Ali Larijani, meanwhile, insisted in a speech to MPs that the Islamic republic would fully defend “its nuclear rights” in Geneva.

AFP, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report

Liberman: It’s time for Israel to look for allies other than the United States | JPost | Israel News.

By JPOST.COM STAFF

11/20/2013 14:28

Foreign minister says “for many years Israel’s foreign policy was one directional towards Washington, but my policy has many more directions”; stresses peace with Palestinians will come only after economy strengthens.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said Wednesday that Israel should focus on making new allies as opposed to relying solely on its relationship with the United States.

During a speech given at the Sderot Conference, Liberman stressed the importance of not putting too much focus on America as Israel’s main ally. “For many years Israel’s foreign policy was one directional towards Washington, but my policy has many more directions.”

Liberman, who returned to his post last week after being acquitted of fraud charges, said “the Americans today are dealing with too many challenges and I wouldn’t want to be in their place. They are busy in Iran and North Korea and also have economic and immigration problems.”

The foreign minister’s comments came as Washington and Jerusalem have butted heads recently regarding sanctions and nuclear talks with Iran. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State John Kerry have publicly disagreed about pursuing a diplomatic agreement with Iran.

Regarding the peace process, Liberman said “we can build peace but we can’t force it. The order of priorities must be first Israeli security, afterward the Palestinian economy and then peace. We can’t ruin this order. We will come to peace without negotiatiors when the economic situation improves”.

Liberman also attacked the treatment of Israel at the UN: “If i were to take the simplest statistic…since the founding of the security council there were 49 condemnations against Israel and only 3 against Iran.”

Western nations rush to restore business ties with Iran ahead of a nuclear deal and eased sanctions.

Five world powers plus one face Iran in Geneva

The six powers’ negotiating teams sat down in Geneva for resumed nuclear talks with Iran Wednesday, Nov. 20 in a haze of cautious optimism radiating from from Washington, Moscow and London about the prospects of the first accord to be signed with Tehran on a path toward resolving the controversy over its nuclear program.
Still, no one was laying bets on the deal, a preliminary accord providing six months for a comprehensive agreement to be discussed>

They know that Tehran is always unpredictable. Negotiators with the Islamic Republic have been bitten more than once. And so they can’t rule out the possibility of the Iranian negotiator at the last minute, as all pens are poised to sign, holding up the process by saying he is not authorized to agree on one point or another and must return home for further consultations.

This is a familiar Iranian ploy for extracting more concessions from the opposite side.

Looking on the bright side, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif posted a message on YouTube ahead of the meeting saying that there was “every possibility for success” and he looked forward to quick results in Geneva.
Vladimir Putin, too, after he talked by phone to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the Kremlin announced Tuesday, “There is a real chance for a nuclear deal.”

President Barack Obama was also upbeat about an accord, although he said he didn’t know if it would come this week or next. He assured The Wall Street Journal that the bulk of the sanctions regime would meanwhile remain.

Although the US President has promised that no more than “modest” sanctions relaxations would be granted in the framework of the preliminary accord, allied Western governments, especially in West Europe, are so certain that Obama is set on a historic accord between the US and Iran, that they can see his foot lifting off the sanctions brakes. They are therefore already engaged in direct talks with Tehran about resumed business after the accord is in the bag, on a scale that would dwarf the volume of sanctions relief.

France is the exception because its main trading partners in the region are in the Arab Gulf rather than Iran.
The sanctions architecture which took years to put in place is therefore likely to crumble fast, even if Tehran holds back from finalizing the preliminary agreement in Geneva.

So what motive does Iran have for a quick deal when a drawn-out delay promises such benefits as melting sanctions and a chance to squeeze the West for further concessions that leave its nuclear program in place and viable?

Elkin: Israel Can Act Alone Against Iran – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin

Flash 90

Israel will be able to stop Iran’s nuclear program on its own if necessary, Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin (Likud) said on Tuesday.

Speaking to Arutz Sheva a day before negotiations between Iran and the West are to resume in Geneva, Elkin backed recent statements by former national security adviser, Yaakov Amidror, and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett.

Amidror said on Sunday that Israel could stop Iran’s nuclear program “for a very long time” if it wanted to and that there was “no question” that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu would be prepared to make the decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities unilaterally if necessary.

Bennett said on Monday that “Israel has the ability to defend itself, and Israel will defend itself if necessary.”

These statements, Elkin said, echo what Netanyahu himself said in his last speech at the United Nations.

“We’ve said things very clearly and this is what the Prime Minister said at the UN. We said that if the world does not act we will solve the problem alone, and we meant just that,” he stressed, adding, “We are able to act. It’s not easy. Our ability to cause damage to Iran’s nuclear program is not as strong as that of the Americans, but this ability is definitely there and we cannot sit back if we see that Iran is advancing towards a nuclear weapon.”

Elkin warned that the deal currently being offered to Iran could result in a similar situation as with North Korea.

“This deal is not good because it leaves a big chance that we will be surprised and Iran will break out towards a military-nuclear program, and an example of this is North Korea,” he said. “When you talk with the South Koreans you see exactly what is the price of a bad deal. It appears as though right now we are headed towards a bad deal, a deal in which Iran contributes irrelevant things that may have had significance a year or two ago, but in light of Iran’s technological progress have no meaning now.”

He noted that it cannot be said for certain that a deal with Iran will indeed be signed this week, pointing out the failure of the last round of talks due to France’s tough position towards Iran’s nuclear program.

“I agree that it is very likely that an agreement will be signed but it is not for sure,” said Elkin.

Ahead of Wednesday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif released a video in which he emphasized his nation’s “rights” and “dignity” in pursuing a nuclear program.

In the video Zarif claimed the Geneva talks have not “hit a dead end” following the collapse of the previous round of talks.

Meanwhile, U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice played down the impact that a limited lifting of economic sanctions would have on Iran.

Rice told CNN that the deal being offered to Iran by the West is “a good one.” Specifically, she said, it will roll back the Iranian nuclear program in key respects over a six-month period while increasing the transparency surrounding the program so that the Iranians “can’t sneak out or break out.”

On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that Israel has “every right” to voice opposition to a potential nuclear deal with Iran but declared that Netanyahu’s fears were unfounded.

“Nothing that we are doing here, in my judgment, will put Israel at any additional risk,” Kerry said. “In fact, let me make this clear, we believe it reduces risk.”

There is no credible US military option, and 9 other pointers from Jerusalem | The Times of Israel.

The Netanyahu government is not certain the US would have its back if it resorted to force. But Israel has defied the international community before, and would do so again if it saw no alternative

By David Horovitz November 20, 2013, 6:45 am

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama embrace at a ceremony held in honor of Obama as he lands at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, on March 20, 2013 (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)

As has been publicly unmistakable for the past 10 days, Israel and its key ally the United States are deeply at odds over the terms of an interim deal that may well be concluded shortly between the P5+1 countries and Iran. As talks on that deal resume in Geneva on Wednesday, the following are 10 pointers and insights on Israel’s assessments, positions, and possible actions.

1. Israel always knew the Obama Administration was all about “engagement” and that it would keep open the door to a diplomatic arrangement with Iran almost indefinitely. But there were those in Jerusalem who did not rule out an American resort to force, under certain circumstances, until the Syrian chemical weapons crisis over the summer. At that juncture, the horrified American public and Congressional reaction to the prospect of imminent conflict with Syria further hardened the Administration’s determination to do whatever it could to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis without resorting to force. And, since then, Israel has broadly concluded that — while the US insists it is not bluffing, and while it has made preparations for military action — there is no credible American military option.

2. Israel assumed that there were various back channel negotiations taking place between the US and Iran. Despite American pledges to fully coordinate with Israel in grappling with the rogue Iranian nuclear program, Jerusalem was not kept informed of all such contacts.

3. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was aware of the US game-plan for an interim deal en route to a more permanent arrangement. The news 10 days ago that this interim deal, as presented in Geneva by the P5+1 nations, would enable Iran to continue enrichment to 3.5% was deeply discomfiting but no great surprise; the news that Iran would be allowed — in the initial formulations of the deal — to continue work at the Arak heavy water facility, by contrast, was unexpected and profoundly troubling for Jerusalem. That facility, if work continues, will go live sometime next year, and then becomes deeply problematic to target in any military intervention.

4. Israel regards Secretary of State John Kerry’s interactions on the Iran negotiations in recent weeks as illogical, inconsistent and problematic. There is a fundamental contradiction between the secretary’s assurances that Israel has been kept fully updated and his insistence that Israel should not critique a deal about which it is less than fully informed. His assertion that Israel should not criticize the deal before it is done is regarded as risible, since once a deal is done, any criticism would be rendered irrelevant.

5. If, as seems highly likely, an interim deal is reached in Geneva this week or soon afterward, Israel is likely to publicly hold to its position that it reserves the right to defend itself and its people, and is not beholden to any agreement signed between the P5+1 nations and Iran.

6. History would suggest that Israel is entirely capable of defying the international community to act militarily if it regards itself to be facing an existential threat. It has defied the international community in the past, notably in 1948, 1956 and 1967. The Sinai 1956 circumstances make for interesting consideration: Israel believed it had some six months in which to act before the Egyptian army would have absorbed Soviet weaponry for which Israel felt it had no answer. And it acted.

7. Israeli-US tensions over Iran have now emphatically reached the level of a major crisis, involving a fundamental clash of interests. Much of this stems from structural differences: The US is a big country, war wary, a long way from Iran, and not threatened with annihilation. Israel is a small country, relatively close to Iran, potentially threatened with annihilation and with different military capabilities.

8. There is not absolute certainty that the United States would have Israel’s back in the event that it did resort to force.

9. If Israel’s leaders find themselves faced with the following equation: on the one hand, the imperative to protect eight million Israelis and the existence of the state and, on the other, the danger of enraging the international community, the choice would actually be quite straightforward.

10. Those in the know in Israel are convinced that, against Iran’s nuclear program, Israel has formidable capabilities. This is not to suggest that the Israeli Air Force would be scrambling on the day after a deal is signed with Iran. But the option to strike would be there.

BBC News US President Barack Obama’s vision for Iran deal – YouTube.

–

(His words speak for themselves. Unrealistic would be a euphemism… – JW )

Senate puts off Iran sanctions vote as nuclear talks in Geneva start – UPI.com.

GENEVA, Switzerland, Nov. 20 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate will put off a vote on new Iranian sanctions that could derail nuclear talks, senators said, as a crucial round of talks was to begin Wednesday.

“It makes sense not to add new sanctions while negotiations are going on,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was quoted by The New York Times as saying after he and nine other top Democratic and Republican leaders of Senate foreign policy and national security committees met with President Obama at the White House.

At the same time, the senators urged Obama to reject any nuclear deal with Iran that did not include a tangible rollback of its nuclear weapons program, the senators told reporters.

The talks in Geneva, billed as picking up where failed talks in the Swiss city left off 10 days ago, are to pursue what officials call a “first-step,” six-month agreement in which Iran freezes its nuclear program in return for a moderate letup of economic sanctions.

The proposed interim deal has met fierce opposition from Israel and Persian Gulf allies, as well as from Republicans and some Democrats in Congress.

Under the proposed deal, during the six months, the United States, Britain, France, Germany Russia and Germany — known as the P5-plus-1 because they’re the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany — would try to work out a comprehensive agreement that would end a 10-year impasse over Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

The United States, Israel and other allies maintain Iran is covertly trying to develop a capacity to build nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies, insisting its nuclear ambitions are limited to the peaceful generation of electricity and other civilian uses.

“I don’t know if we’ll be able to close a deal this week or next week,” Obama told a business leaders forum in Washington after meeting with the senators. “We have been very firm with the Iranians, even on the interim deal, about what we expect.”

In return for Iran agreeing to several concessions, including halting advances on its nuclear program and subjecting its plants to “more vigorous inspections” than the inspections already in place, “what we would do would be to open up the spigot a little bit for a very modest amount of relief that is entirely subject to reinstatement if, in fact, they violated any part of this early agreement,” Obama told The Wall Street Journal CEO Council.

The administration estimates the proposed sanctions relief would be worth $5 billion to $10 billion to Iran, a participant in the White House meeting told the Times.

During the six months of negotiations, “we could see if they could get to the end state of a position where we, the Israelis, the international community, could say with confidence Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon,” Obama told the forum.

The most-recent three-day round of talks ended Nov. 10 after French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius insisted the P5-plus-1 must not acknowledge Iran’s right to enrich uranium and should demand Iran end construction at a plutonium-producing heavy-water reactor in Arak, a city 185 miles southwest of Tehran.

Plutonium can be used to make a nuclear bomb.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said during the meeting he would have to consult with Tehran on the 11th-hour changes, and the talks broke up, British newspaper The Guardian reported.

On Sunday, Zarif was quoted by the semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency as saying Tehran now saw no “necessity” for the P5-plus-1 to recognize Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium — a core demand Iran says is “non-negotiable” — since that right is already asserted and preserved in a U.N. treaty.

Zarif said in a video posted on YouTube Tuesday the P5-plus-1 should take advantage of the “historic opportunity” to resolve the nuclear dispute.

Also Tuesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani spoke on the phone with British Prime Minister David Cameron, in the first direct communication between the two countries’ leaders in a decade.

“Both leaders agreed that significant progress had been made in the recent Geneva negotiations and that it was important to seize the opportunity presented by the further round of talks,” Cameron’s office said after the call.

Rice Plays Down Iran Sanctions Relief – Middle East – News – Israel National News.

Susan Rice

U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice on Tuesday tried to play down the impact that a limited lifting of economic sanctions would have on Iran.

Rice told CNN that the deal being offered to Iran by the West is “a good one.”

Specifically, she said, it will roll back the Iranian nuclear program in key respects over a six-month period while increasing the transparency surrounding the program so that the Iranians “can’t sneak out or break out.”

Rice noted that what she called the “sanctions architecture” will remain in place so that the relief will be “limited, modest, temporary, and reversible.”

She insisted that the amount of Iranian assets that would be unfrozen under the deal would be less than $10 billion.

“We’re talking about a modest amount of money,” she told CNN.

The interview took place as negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany are set to resume on Wednesday in Geneva.

The last round of talks ended without a deal after France presented a tougher position than its Western counterparts.

Rice said last week that the first phase of the deal being offered to Iran would involve six months of halting progress on Iran’s nuclear program and beginning to roll it back, while the U.S. would offer “limited, temporary and reversible economic relief” that leaves the “architecture of sanctions wholly in place.”

Israel has repeatedly warned against the deal being offered to Iran. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and many of his Cabinet ministers have noted that the deal allows Iran to get sanctions relief without it giving back to the West.

Israel’s warnings have resulted in a public war of words between Israel and America. On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that Israel has “every right” to voice opposition to a potential nuclear deal with Iran but declared that Netanyahu’s fears were unfounded.

On Tuesday, Economy Minister Naftali Bennett told Arutz Sheva that a “good deal” with Tehran would dismantle Iran’s entire “nuclear weapon machine,” while a “bad deal” is one in which “we click the ‘pause’ button and stop the production for a few months.”

Over the past few days, Bennett has been in the U.S. where he has been speaking with media and congressmen in an effort to exert pressure on the Obama administration not to relax sanctions on Iran unless Iran agrees to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

Israel starting to consider ‘day after’ Iran agreement | JPost | Israel News.

By HERB KEINON

LAST UPDATED: 11/20/2013 00:27

PM meeting Wednesday with Putin in Moscow to discuss Iran.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, as Israel begins preparing its “day after” scenario in expectation of an imminent interim agreement between the P5+1 and Iran.

Netanyahu continued on Tuesday to implore the P5+1 – the US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – to improve the conditions of the deal shaping up. But as he did so, others began talking about strategy for the eventuality that a deal is signed when the sides meet on Wednesday in Geneva for the third time this month.

According to the general contours of the deal, Iran would freeze its nuclear program for six months in return for sanctions relief. This six month period would then be used to try and negotiate a permanent accord.

Likud MK Tzachi Hanegbi, a Netanyahu confidant, said on Tuesday that Israel would not see itself bound by an agreement that does not prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

But at a briefing organized by The Israel Project, he said that Jerusalem understands this is “a first step toward a final agreement, and will go forward” in its efforts to convey its concerns and convince the world of what is needed to keep Iran from getting nuclear arms.

“We are not going on strike,” he said. “We will not do a sit-in. We will be more frustrated than before, because we were more optimistic that we would be able to convince some of the countries [in the P5+1] that this is the wrong path to follow, but we will go forward in our efforts to convince as many as possible.”

Israel’s main problem with the proposed deal is that it freezes Iran’s program but does not dismantle it or significantly roll it back, in exchange for sanctions relief that Jerusalem believes severely weakens the pressure on Tehran. Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said on Tuesday that in accepting this agreement, the world would be demonstrating that it “is willing to deceive itself.”

Netanyahu, meanwhile, showed no sign of letting up on his public diplomacy campaign against the deal.

Accompanying visiting French President François Hollande to an innovation conference and exhibit in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu said, “What we are seeing is the future. I think where radical Islam is trying to take us is the past.

We are for modernity. They are for a dark medievalism.

We’re for opening up our societies for everyone – men, women, minorities and the right to be different. They’re for uniform suppression [by the dictates] of a rigid doctrine, and they want to back it up with weapons of death.”

Netanyahu repeated that it would be a “grave mistake” to ease the pressure on Iran at this time. “It would be a great mistake to capitulate before Iran when they have every reason right now to respond to the pressures that have been put on them. Rather than surrendering to their charm offensive, it’s important that they surrender to the pressure that can be brought to them to have them abandon their nuclear program.”

Hanegbi emphasized the importance of Netanyahu’s meeting with Putin, though the Geneva talks are set to resume before the two leaders meet.

“Russia is a very important player, a key player, because out of the six countries [in the P5+1] it is the one with the most intimate relations with Iran. They built the reactor at Bushehr and are supplying Iran with weapons.

They are very influential. Even though it might not have an effect on Geneva, we feel the dialogue between us and the Russians on this is enormously important,” Hanegbi said.

This will be Netanyahu’s fifth visit to Russia since he became prime minister again in 2009, and he continued a dialogue with the Russians that was also carried out by his predecessors, Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert.

Hanegbi said that dialogue has proven effective, and pointed to the fact that the Russians have kept their state-of-the-art S300 anti-aircraft missiles out of the Syrian arena.

Netanyahu will be accompanied on his trip by Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin, a native Russian speaker who has served as an interpreter in the past during Netanyahu-Putin meetings.

Israel, meanwhile, was not the only actor engaging in aggressive public diplomacy ahead of Wednesday’s talks in Geneva.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who heads Iran’s delegation at the Geneva talks, issued a five-minute video on Tuesday, with subtitles in various languages. In it, he said that the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program could be solved as long as the Western powers treated Iran as an equal and did not seek to impose their will.

“This past summer, our people chose constructive engagement through the ballot box, and through this, they gave the world a historic opportunity to change course,” he said. “To seize this unique opportunity, we need to accept an equal footing and choose a path based on mutual respect.”

According to Brig.-Gen (res.) Michael Herzog, now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, one of the problems was that the P5+1 nations did not seem to agree on an “endgame” for the permanent agreement.

“I’m not sure the P5+1 knows where they want to go,” he said.

He noted that there was no agreement among the countries on basic questions such as how far they want to set Iran back from “breakout capacity” and whether the heavy water reactor at Arak needed to be totally decommissioned or not.

Herzog, who over the past decade held senior positions in the Defense Ministry, said in a conference call organized by the Clarion Project that there were several open issues that still needed resolution in Geneva.

The first is whether the preamble to the agreement will say that Tehran has the right to enrich uranium, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

As of a few days ago, the Islamic Republic was demanding that this right be spelled out, while the P5+1 position was that the NPT does not grant a right to enrich uranium, but only the right to a civilian nuclear program for peaceful purposes. Uranium enrichment is not needed for a civilian program.

Herzog speculated that that preamble will be kept vague and say that Iran will enjoy the rights under the NPT, but leave open to interpretation by both sides whether that includes the right to enrich uranium.

Herzog said that the agreement will most likely stipulate that the Iranians cannot enrich uranium to 20 percent, but then the question will arise of what to do with uranium already enriched to that level. While the Iranians will want to oxidize it, something they can convert back if they so decide, the P5+1 wants to see it converted into fuel rods, which is irreversible.

Another major issue has to do with the heavy water reactor at Arak, and whether – as the Iranians are demanding – they will be able to continue work on the project but not make it operational for the next six months, or – as the French are demanding – all work must stop on that plant.

Finally, he said, agreements will have to be reached on the type of supervision regime to be put into place, and what kind of inspections the International Atomic Energy Agency will be able to carry out. So far, the Iranians have refused to allow inspection at the Parchin facility, believed to be where military components of the nuclear program are being worked on.

Iranian political figures, meanwhile, have lined up to accuse Paris of jeopardizing chances to reach a deal after Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned against accepting “a fool’s game” – lopsided concessions to Tehran.

On Monday, Hollande set out a tough stance during his visit to Israel, saying he would not give way on nuclear proliferation with respect to Iran.

His remarks received criticism on Tuesday from an Iranian parliamentary official.

“We advise the president of France to comment on the basis of facts, not assumptions, and beyond that, not to be the executor of the Zionist regime’s [Israel’s] plan,” Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the assembly’s national security and foreign affairs committee, told Iran’s official news agency.

On Tuesday, Iranian parliamentarians gathered signatures to demand that the government continue enriching uranium to levels of 20 percent and finish building the Arak reactor.

“The government is obliged to protect the nuclear rights of Iran in the forthcoming negotiations,” Mehr news agency quoted MP Fatemeh Alia as saying.

Sharon Udasin and Reuters contributed to this report.