Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday criticized the international community for negotiating with Iran while taking no steps to curb its sponsorship of global terrorism, as top American and Iranian diplomats attempted to hammer out a deal in Geneva.
Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, the prime minister said that it was “astonishing that even after the recent IAEA report determined that Iran is continuing to hide the military components of its nuclear program, the nuclear talks are proceeding."
"Not only are they continuing, there is an increased effort to reach a nuclear agreement in the coming days and weeks,” Netanyahu said. The deadline for the six world powers and Iran to reach a political agreement about Tehran’s unsanctioned nuclear program is March 31.
On Thursday, an IAEA report stated that Tehran is being evasive and ambiguous in its dealings with the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, preventing the organization from launching a thorough assessment of the country’s nuclear program.
In the wake of the report, Netanyahu called on world leaders to stop “wooing Iran” over a nuclear deal.
Netanyahu also panned the international community for continuing to negotiate despite Iran’s sponsorship of international terrorism.
“The fact that Iran is continuing its murderous terrorism that knows no borders and which embraces the region and the world has, to our regret, not prevented the international community from continuing to talk with Iran about a nuclear agreement that will allow it to build the industrial capacity to develop nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said Sunday.
Netanyahu said the emerging deal was “dangerous for Israel,” and defended his planned speech about the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program in Washington next month. In a jab at the executive branch, he said the US Congress “would appear to be the body that will affect the fate of the deal.”
There is a heightened sense of urgency as the clock ticks down towards the March 31 deadline for a political framework for the deal.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday was astonished that even as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) once again acknowledges in its latest report that Iran is likely building a nuclear bomb, the West, led by the Obama Administration, remains mired in fruitless diplomatic talks with Tehran.
...the report emphasized that there are many suspected facilities and programs that Iran is keeping concealed or otherwise denying access to, and that among them are facilities and programs that are strongly believed to be military in nature.
“The Agency remains concerned about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile,” read the report.
The IAEA noted that its November 2011 report had “provided a detailed analysis of the information available to the Agency at that time, indicating that Iran has carried out activities that are relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device,” and that that assessment remains credible.
In a statement released to the press just before the weekend, Netanyahu wondered how in light of these revelations “the major powers are continuing to try and allow Iran to produce the core of such weapons, enriched uranium.”
Israeli authorities have charged that the nuclear deal currently being negotiated between the Obama Administration and Iran would permit the Islamic Republic to keep the bulk of its nuclear program intact so long as it provide guarantees that the purpose is peaceful.
Like many in Israel, Netanyahu argues that such guarantees are worthless given that even the IAEA admits Iran is concealing dangerous activities, and the Israeli leader intends to tell the US Congress as much early next month.
[Keep in mind, we are also witnessing the strengthening of the Gog-Magog alliance]
The dynamics of Russian foreign policy since the USA has forced a de facto declaration of war via financial and economic sanctions against Russia is impressive to put it mildly. Whether it will suffice to break the economic siege of Washington and open the way for a genuine global economic alternative to the bankrupt US Dollar System is not yet clear. What is clear is that Vladimir Putin and the faction of industrial barons who have decided to back him are not cowering in fear. The latest example is the recent visit of the Russian Defense Minister to Teheran, to do major military cooperation deals with Iran. The implications for both countries as well as the future of Eurasia are potentially huge.
On January 20 in Teheran, Russia and Iran signed an agreement on military cooperation. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Iranian Defense and Armed Forces Logistics Minister Hossein Dehghan signed the new agreement. Remarking on its significance, Shoigu stated, “A theoretic base of cooperation in the military sphere has been created.” He added that the two countries have agreed on “bilateral cooperation in practical regards and to promote an increase in the military capabilities of the armed forces of our countries.” The two also agreed on “the importance of the need to develop Russia and Iran’s cooperation in the joint struggle against meddling in the affairs of the region by external forces that are not part of it was framed,” Iranian Defense Minister Dehghan declared. To make sure no one mistook who he meant, he added that the reason for aggravation in the situation of the region was a US policy that “meddles in the domestic affairs of other countries."
The coming closer of the two Eurasian countries, both bordering the strategic Caspian Sea, has enormous implications for global geopolitics.
The Obama Administration has tried to woo Iran in a stick (economic sanctions) and carrot (promise of lifting same) manner over the past eighteen months to get Teheran to agree major concessions on her nuclear program. Until recently, despite US sanctions over Ukraine, Russia was willing to show “good faith” to Washington by participating in the 5-1 nuclear negotiations with Iran to persuade Teheran to make major concessions on its nuclear program, one where Russia built the just-completed Bushehr nuclear power plant, the first in the Middle East. That phase is clearly over and Iran’s hand in the negotiations with the US, France, Germany, UK has just got stronger, sanctions or not
For Washington, the nuclear pressure is part of an attempt to force Iran to abandon her ally, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, in order to open the way for Qatar, a close ally of Saudi Arabia and site of the world’s largest natural gas field in the Persian Gulf. Qatar, which has been the prime funder of the US and Israeli-trained ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq, wants to export its gas to the EU via Syria and Turkey
Iran, which holds the other part of that huge Persian Gulf gas field, North Pars, in its offshore waters, signed a strategic pipeline deal with Assad and Iraq in June 2011 to build a new Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline for 1500 kilometers from their chunk of the world’s largest gas field going from Asaluyeh, the Iranian port near the South Pars gas field, to Damascus in Syria. From there the pipeline would go via Lebanon to the eastern Mediterranean and on to the huge EU gas market. They named it the "Islamic Pipeline."
Qatar would be the loser. Qatar, a Sunni Islam country that finances ISIS as well as the Muslim Brotherhood and other such charming Jihadists, doesn’t like the idea.
Qatar approached Assad in 2009 to propose a Qatar-Syria pipeline to the EU via Turkey but was turned down flat. Assad said his relations with Russia and Gazprom were more important. It was just at the time of the Iran-Iraq-Syria Islamic Pipeline signing in June 2011 that Washington, Saudi Arabia and Qatar decided to launch a full-scale war to topple Assad and replace him with a Sunni regime friendly to Qatar and Washington. Hardly a coincidence.
Also see:
No comments:
Post a Comment